Is Aam Aadmi Party the new spokesperson of the underclass?

NEW DELHI: Does AAP's resounding victory make it the new spokesperson of the underclass?

While Left parties have increasingly become indistinguishable from their bourgeois opponents and are faced with existential crisis in their erstwhile strongholds, AAP with its new narrative of taking poor, not-so-poor and the city-bred professionals along seems to infuse new enthusiasm among those seeking the non-Congress secular alternative. But does it make AAP the new Left of India? Veteran political scientist D L Sheth scoffs at the very idea of branding AAP the new Left. "They will be doomed if they become Left or new Left," he says, adding that terminologies like Left, Right and Centre are understood by barely one per cent of the population. Political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta agrees with Sheth. He says AAP's mandate cannot be understood through old messages and easy categorizations.

Left parties, CPM for instance, asked their cadre to vote for AAP in Delhi in 55 constituencies but are yet to firm up their view on the new outfit. CPM general secretary Prakash Karat had said it is waiting for AAP's views on larger policy issues.

But analysts like Sheth are clear. Politics, Sheth says, is not about rich and poor divide and it is not even about just working class aspirations. "Aspiration is the same. Divide is between upper/middle classes and the rest. More than inequality, it is about skewedness of income. Now people do not want any thing free, they want to participate in the process of democracy," he says, adding that a new term has to be found.

Sheth says the myth of a Hindu vote bank is broken. BJP attracted voters as dynastic politics had prevented change. "But BJP started with Ghar Wapsi by thinking people want Hindu rashtra. Same Hindu vote will oust them," he says.