A Capital in search of a government

Short of ordering the dissolution of the Delhi Assembly, the Supreme Court (SC) did the next best thing in directing the Centre to decide its fate within five weeks. With the numbers as they stand, fresh elections appear the sole, reasonable way out.

The BJP might be accused of stalling, perhaps content with the logjam for now, but it is the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP) that could be charged with bringing the situation to such a pass, despite its representations to the SC on holding fresh polls.

More than the BJP and Congress, it is arguably AAP that has a lot more riding on polls — after its splendid show, making corruption and a new era of transparent, accountable politics a central issue, the party was seen has having ditched that promise with Arvind Kejriwal resigning as chief minister ostensibly with an eye on the Lok Sabha polls.

But AAP came acropper there, save a few seats from Punjab, and Kejriwal was forced to acknowledge that the party had suffered a blow by "abandoning" Delhi. Fresh polls should now be held at the earliest, despite the chances that the Centre might recommend the extension of President’s rule. As the SC hinted, it is a basic contravention of democracy that voters in the Capital should be denied a representative government.

And a continuing stalemate, with its accusations of horse-trading and rule by proxy, is hardly in the best interests of Delhi’s denizens. AAP may have spread itself too thin in the Lok Sabha polls, there may be issues with its internal functioning, but it still retains the dark-horse element of surprise.

Its task should be simple: it set a new standard in making poll funding transparent and accountable — it should continue that, and actually put pressure on its two main rivals on that count. Indian democracy can only benefit from such a precedent.