Delhi Polls 2015: Congress-BJP rivalry missing as AAP turns top enemy for both parties

NEW DELHI: For perhaps the first time in several decades, it seems arch-rivals BJP and Congress are ignoring each other in Delhi election campaigns, with both targeting the Aam Aadmi Party.

BJP, which won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi last year, has roped in top adman Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy & Mather’s to launch publicity blitzkrieg in the last leg of campaigning, even as various opinion polls suggest a groundswell of support in favour of AAP and the possibility of yet another hung assembly in the capital. A BJP leader said that there will be both negative and positive advertisements.

The negative ones will target AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and the positive ones will talk about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for Delhi. "Like today, there is one ad that shows Kejriwal taking oath on his children’s head and the other about Modi promising a house in place of each jhuggi," the person said the BJP leader.

The Congress, which was used to taking out booklets or promotional leaflets questioning the BJP and its policies, has so far not taken on BJP or the prime minister. Its entire audio-visual campaign is focused on AAP and Kejriwal and the grand old party has also published a booklet on AAP’s promises.

So, why have BJP and Congress spared each other? With most opinion polls putting Congress at a distant third position, BJP may have decided to ignore its old rival and instead focus on AAP, while for Congress it’s a question of survival in the Capital.

In post-poll analysis of the December 2013 Delhi elections — the first that AAP fought — the Congress realised that the new party had poached its traditional vote banks. Though Muslims voted in favour of the Congress, Dalits and more specifically Valmikis were successfully weaned away by AAP. The trend continued in 2014 parliamentary elections when even Muslim voters, so far unsure of AAP’s winning capability, started tilting towards the new outfit.

According to a study conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, AAP secured more votes than Congress in each of the 10 high Muslim concentration segments during the 2014 parliamentary elections, with most young voters backing the new party.

Congress’ internal assessment also revealed that AAP had also made inroads in slums and resettlement colonies, which have traditionally voted for the Congress. An alarmed Congress is now concentrating only on wooing its traditional boroughs back from Kejriwal.

Its radio jingles make fun of Kejriwal’s dharnas, saying, "Dharne se nahin karne se Dilli ka vikas hoga (Delhi will progress with work not with protests)." It also poked fun at Kejriwal’s trademark muffler and called the unfulfilled promises of AAP’s 49-day rule in Delhi as "Muffler U-turn".

Congress will field its star campaigner Rahul Gandhi for his first ever roadshow in the Walled City on February 3. This will be followed by a padyatra and public meetings in Seelampur and Badli — both M u s l i m -dominated areas — the next day. BJP, meanwhile, will launch a high-decibel audio-video and print campaign in a day or two to back more than 200 public meetings its senior leaders will hold in Delhi in the last week of campaigning, to ensure a clear majority.

Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director at Ogilvy & Mather, South Asia, confirmed to ET that he was involved with BJP’s Delhi campaign. He had closely worked on BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign, which won the prestigious Grand Effie award recently. "We are doing posters, radio jingles, the anthem and a lot of other stuff for the BJP in Delhi," he said.

A presentation of the audio-video campaign material was made before finance minister Arun Jaitley on Friday, where it was decided that Pandey’s campaign song will be released as the party’s Delhi anthem along with the vision document "in a day or two," a party leader said.