Aaj mangalwar hai (Today is Tuesday),” said Arvind Kejriwal, pausing for effect. The sea of Aam Aadmi Party volunteers, who had eagerly gathered to hear him after the results of the assembly elections in Delhi were announced, pounced on the cue and cheered wildly. “Hanuman ji ka din hai (It is Lord Hanuman’s day),” Kejriwal continued. He thanked the deity for the poll outcome.
The reference to Hanuman was apt. After all, he did help the Delhi chief minister in blunting the attacks of a belligerent BJP that sought to label him as anti-Hindu in the context of the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests. A visibly hurt Kejriwal had defended himself saying, on television, that he was a Hanuman bhakt. Asked if he knew Hanuman chalisa, he also recited the hymn.
Aligning himself with Hanuman aided Kejriwal in a fierce election campaign that had the BJP, led by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, seeking to project him as a benefactor of the “anti-national, anti-Hindu” elements leading the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh. “It happened purely by chance,” said a close aide of Kejriwal. “The TV anchor asked Kejriwal if he knew Hanuman chalisa, and he did know it by heart. He turned it into an opportunity.”
On the ground, too, Hanuman resonated, with AAP volunteers responding to BJP workers’ cries of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ with ‘Bajrang Bali Ki Jai’. But the other elements of the AAP’s election strategy were not by chance. They were planned meticulously and executed with finesse. The party matched the BJP, move for move, strategy for strategy.
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