Mayawati

In the 2015 Delhi elections, Arvind Kejriwal didn’t just demolish his opposition; he also defeated the media. That might seem a strange thing to say since the general impression for a long time has been that Kejriwal and his AAP party are a creation of the media, and television news in particular. The fact is, February 2015 is not December 2013. Then, we couldn’t get enough of Kejriwal: he was popping in and out of tv studios and every move, every soundbite of his, was tracked with relentless energy. ‘Would you do it with any other chief minister?’ I recall Narendra Modi asking me once in a phone conversation.

There is nothing quite like an Indian election: it is, to borrow from The Times of India’s slogan, ‘the dance of democracy’. Yesterday, was yet another remarkable moment in India’s electoral history. There was a general feeling ahead of counting day that AAP was in the lead. My own figure in the office sweepstakes was a half century for AAP. But no one, least of all Arvind Kejriwal himself, could have imagined 67 out of the 70 seats.