Delhi gets a new government today, weeks after the election results were declared. Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will become the new chief minister. Of course, he has to prove his majority - in other words, he has to demonstrate in the Assembly that more members of the legislative Assembly (MLAs) support him as chief minister than those who oppose his candidature as leader of the Assembly. In a political party-based democratic system, if a single party has won the majority of the seats, it gets to form a stable government because the chief minister can count on the support of her party MLAs and does not fear being brought down by those voting against her. If the majority of MLAs are not from a single party, MLAs from different parties come together to form a coalition and MLAs from this coalition of parties together make up a majority and choose a chief minister. If the coalition is stable, the government is stable.
Such a coalition usually comes up with a common programme, which essentially means a list of "dos" and "don'ts". For example, during the first term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the Left parties - a coalition of parties themselves - had decided to say yes to all doles for the poor organised by the Congress but no to increasing the cap on foreign investment in insurance or inking the nuclear deal with the United States. As long as the ruling dispensation stays committed to its common programme, the coalition - and hence the government - lasts. The AAP does not have a majority in the Delhi Assembly and has formed no coalition. Will its government be stable?
Suppose I assume that in the majority of constituencies, many voters did not vote for the AAP because they were not sure that the AAP candidates would get enough votes to win. I could, then, say that after seeing the outcome there are many who wished they had voted for the AAP and enabled it to form a majority government. Does this possibility make the current Delhi government stable?
The AAP's major commitment is to good governance. The important - and refreshing - element in its thought process is that it intends doing this for all - not for the poor, not for those in the slums, not for any particular community, but for all Delhi citizens. And the AAP will ensure that everyone is "common" - no additional privileges, with the help of public resources, to anyone. So, cars with red beacons for ministers are out, as are sprawling government bungalows in the heart of Delhi. In other words, while officials will get whatever it takes to perform their duties, no public resource will be put at their disposal to enjoy a lifestyle that is different from others. Of course, different people will have different lifestyles and, to a large extent, it will be because of who can afford what. But such differences will not be a result of different degrees of control on public resources. In fact, the term "mango people" for the aam aadmi does not appear derisive any more. Everyone loves a mango and some people will have more of the better mangoes than others because they can afford them more, and not because they control the distribution of government mangoes.
So, how stable will the AAP government be? My view is that the new Delhi government will be more stable than what one fears, provided it keeps the aam aadmi in its sights. First, those who have been maintaining a better lifestyle through their control of public resources are in a minority, so denying them their privileges and distributing the excess to the others will make more people happy than those who feel let down - in a democracy that ensures greater stability to the government. Second, most of these privileges have been cornered by government officials and the politicians of the older parties, or at least that is the aam aadmi's perception.
So, suppose the current government undertakes a policy that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does not like. The AAP will have, hopefully, taken the decision to do so after consulting with the people, something it has already demonstrated to be good at. The BJP has 32 MLAs and that is more than what the AAP has. The government will fall if they vote against it along with the Congress, or they vote against it and the Congress MLAs abstain. The AAP will then be vindicated, for it has been maintaining that the Congress and the BJP are the same. When the Congress could bring about the change the AAP is trying to implement, it prevented it from doing so by letting the government fail. That would certainly not go down well with the people and could be detrimental to the Congress' chances at the subsequent polls.
If the Congress opposes the AAP and votes against the government, the BJP can make the government fall by voting with the Congress. Once again, this may be unwelcome to those who are benefiting from what the AAP is doing and there are many aam aadmis who voted for the BJP in the just-concluded elections. So the Congress must vote with the AAP when the BJP opposes, and the BJP must abstain or vote with the AAP when the Congress opposes. This is the only way they can prove to their aam party supporters that they are with them.
In other words, the AAP strategists are very good at it. If they are equally good at keeping their commitments, and the Congress and the BJP are not suicidal, the AAP-led government will be stable. The question now is: what steps by the AAP will make the Congress or the BJP suicidal?
The writer is research director of IDF and director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shiv Nadar University
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
