AAP: Same difference

It is rapidly headed the way of other political parties

Public memory is not so proverbially short as to forget a global headline-attracting campaign against corruption less than five years ago led by the Gandhian social worker, Anna Hazare, that melded into a political movement three months later by former income-tax officer Arvind Kejriwal. Now, with a tawdry corruption scandal threatening to split the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), this promising political experiment looks set to go the way of all other political parties. The party Mr Kejriwal created in November 2012 appeared to offer a fresh vision to fight iniquity and corruption that afflict all Indians. It held the promise of transcending the well-worn populism and identity-driven paradigm of traditional politics. Mr Kejriwal raised expectations, inspiring a cadre of former professionals, academics and lawyers committed to cleaning up public life, addressing questions at the heart of the aam aadmi’s angst —from inflated power and water bills to the rights of autorickshaw-drivers and slum dwellers. With the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill as the party’s leitmotif, the AAP fearlessly challenged big business interests once considered sacrosanct in the corridors of power. During his first brief tenure as chief minister of a minority government (2013 to 2014), Mr Kejriwal’s protest against the Delhi police, which comes under the Union home ministry, included sleeping outside Rail Bhavan in the January cold, a move that undoubtedly enhanced his appeal.  

The AAP’s spectacular showing in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections — sweeping 67 of the 70 seats — was won on Mr Kejriwal’s willingness to stretch the boundaries of political protest in the interests of his constituency. Yet, today, the contrast with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has built on its stunning Lok Sabha election success to become a political juggernaut, making inroads into new states and municipalities, is stark. From its 2015 high, the AAP’s political capital has been so badly eroded that it even managed to lose municipal elections last month in its stronghold to the BJP, whose 10-year domination of the city-state’s three municipalities has been one of rank inefficiency. Bizarrely, the BJP managed to improve its performance, with the AAP a distant second. Instead of exercising patience and testing its abilities in Delhi — where Mr Kejriwal made appreciable headway with radical ideas such as providing free water (subject to a limit on use), establishing low-cost dispensaries, achieving slum and hawker rehabilitation, and almost halving power bills — the fledgling party frittered away its energies and resources. Mr Kejriwal’s confrontational style — with his party, but, more famously, with the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi — did not help. It is a mystery why a party with no national base should field 434 candidates in the 2014 general election — no surprise, most of them lost their deposits; only four candidates won — or contest the Goa and Punjab state elections, where its showing was equally poor. The AAP today reels from one farce to another, with an intra-party coup threat by one senior leader and the expulsion of another who has accused Mr Kejriwal of taking a bribe. Mr Kejriwal, who is undoubtedly liable for the AAP’s disarray, urgently needs to rethink his strategy. At the very least, he should restart the serious business of governing — and remember that it took the BJP more than three decades to achieve its domination.