New Delhi, Feb 2 (IANS) Now it is no longer a puzzle to see how AAP, which made a promising debut in 2012, took such a plunge or it is the founder, whose “maverick” concepts have put the party in such a mess?
The Aam Aadmi Party, which infused new enthusiasm in the masses about political activism and was believed to upend the old ways of doing politics, is now struggling to maintain its image — that of being honest and doing politics with transparency. However, on both criteria, the AAP seems to have lost it.
The corruption cases, directly involving the top leadership, have deeply impacted the AAP’s image. Whether it is the liquor policy “scam”, Sheesh Mahal row, the Mohalla Clinics, or the classroom controversy, the list of alleged wrongdoings has been growing by the day.
Also, criticism has been mounting that the AAP could not maintain basic civic necessities in the national capital and no development work has been carried out since the party came into power.
The final push down the precipice seems to have come from its founder and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. His theory of “poison” in Yamuna and the “genocide” of Delhiites was shocking.
Kejriwal said the “BJP government has mixed such a kind of poison in the water that cannot be treated even by the water treatment plants”. He did not stop here and said it was genocide, “Such politics is done by two enemy countries — like the US bombed Japan. A few countries use biological weapons to poison river water.”
He straightway took the name of the BJP government in Haryana and said it “poisoned” the water of Yamuna which was being supplied to the national capital. He claimed had the Delhi Jal Board not stopped the water from coming into Delhi, it would have triggered a “mass genocide”.
This shocking statement from Kejriwal is being viewed as an outburst of despondency. Has he sensed unease among the Delhiities in this Assembly election after being rejected in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls?
The Lok Sabha results were a big jolt to him as he had made the election a kind of referendum on his arrest in the liquor case which he had termed “illegal”. The electorate rejected his candidates, somehow proving that his ‘victimhood’ card had no takers.
Having tasted rejection, a desperate Kejriwal took to the freebie politics leading to a bizarre situation where a Chief Minister announces schemes and the government terms them “fraud”. This probably must be unprecedented in India’s Independent history.
Politics has never been normal with Kejriwal — from sleeping on the road threatening to disrupt the Republic Day function in 2014 to parking himself overnight on L-G’s sofa in 2018, and now the Yamuna poison politics. He even tried to make his arrest, jail period and release on bail, something like political “martyrdom”.
His unusual activism has no doubt given him a majority in the Delhi Assembly thrice — becoming the chief minister from 2013 to 2014, 2015 to 2020 and then again for the third time. But, this time, things appear to be difficult for him and his party on a downhill movement.
Has the party suffered more because of Kejriwal’s kind of politics, which saw most of his friends out of the AAP, be it Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Kumar Vishwas, Mayank Gandhi, Kapil Mishra and several others?
Mayank Gandhi had even said in 2015 while launching his book ‘AAP and Down’, that “Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has compromised with party principles”. He and many others have said that Kejriwal “is autocratic and not democratic” – certainly a quality that does not go with the Mango Man image.
One of Kejriwal’s close aides, Kailash Gahlot, who was a minister in Delhi, resigned from the party, saying “AAP compromised its values.”
The sharp decline in the party disappointed those who thought that AAP was going to be the real disruptor in Indian politics.
This Assembly election is going to be more about the survival of AAP rather than the speculation — if it is going to maintain its dominating numbers. Could the party have done better if it had projected Atishi, who is one of the few AAP leaders with a cleaner record, as the CM face?
With the kind of allegations being levelled against Kejriwal, it would have been better if he stepped aside for a while and let the party be the priority. The unfortunate part is that being the founder of a party always makes the leader possessive and short-sighted. Perhaps that is the case with Kejriwal.
It is high time that he takes a break from being the AAP supremo and lets the party go back to its founding principles. The people want a clean alternative. And AAP under Kejriwal having started on such a promising note appears to have lost the way.
(Deepika Bhan can be contacted at deepika.b@ians.in)
–IANS
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