Kavita Chowdhury: Shaken, AAP does a course correction

The party is taking its battles politically rather than emotionally

When 15,000 striking resident doctors refused to get back to work at state-run hospitals on June 23 despite the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government conceding all their demands, it decided to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA). The media was tipped off in order to provide the government a face saver - the doctors' strike was too close on the heels of one by cleaners that left piles of garbage strewn on the capital's roads. By 1 pm, the file had been forwarded to Lt Governor Najeeb Jung by the government's chosen Home Secretary Rajendra Kumar, only to have it returned by Jung's office because protocol had not been followed.

Several hours of suspense followed, after which the file had to be routed through Dharam Pal, the home secretary appointed by the Union home ministry and the Lt Governor. ESMA was announced only after 4 pm. The government still maintains Kumar is the home secretary, but has stopped making public statements about it.

Entering the Delhi assembly with a landslide victory, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre and its "agent", the Lt Governor, over bureaucratic appointments and Delhi Police transfers. Run-ins with BJP-run municipal corporations have become routine. Sanitation workers have struck work twice.

A court ruling permitting the Delhi Police's anti-corruption branch to probe central government officials has come as a shot in the arm for Kejriwal. As has support from other chief ministers like Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee. No sooner was Delhi Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar arrested on charges of fabricating his educational qualifications, the AAP accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of "high-handedness". But the party's decibels decreased as it became apparent that Tomar might have fudged not only his law degree but his graduation degree as well. The episode rankled the AAP rank and file because the party's claims of probity lay in tatters. Tomar's arrest was a signal that the AAP was vulnerable too.

The AAP has left Tomar to his fate. "We won't repeat the mistake of the Rail Bhavan dharna," said a party leader, recalling how Kejriwal during an earlier stint as Delhi's chief minister had protested against the Delhi Police's action against minister, Somnath Bharti. As part of its course correction, the party will fight the BJP-led Centre politically rather than resort to direct confrontation. The AAP has been vociferously demanding that Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani be arrested with the same alacrity that the Delhi Police, which is controlled by the Union home ministry, had displayed in Tomar's case. After a court took cognisance of a complaint against her academic qualifications, the AAP issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to take action against Irani, failing which it would launch nationwide protests.

Home Ministry sources say the outcome of a meeting Kejriwal had with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also did not proceed on expected lines. Singh advised Kejriwal to abide by the rule book, making it clear the administrative diarchy unique to Delhi would continue until the Constitution was amended. A mellower Kejriwal government has in its maiden budget proposed to extend financial support to the east and north municipal corporations. A party insider concedes, the AAP has its eyes set on the 2017 municipal elections and aims to wrest the corporations away from the BJP. Election plans are under way.

The fact that much of its "party with a difference" sheen had come off when its founder members, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, were expelled after a very public power struggle has been another factor for the usually vitriolic AAP leaders to introspect. While an uneasy calm prevails in the Delhi Secretariat, with two officials functioning as home secretary, both the Centre and the Delhi government are hoping for favourable verdicts from the courts in August.

Again on Saturday, the Delhi government moved the High Court to restrain LG-appointee Anti- Corruption Branch chief M K Meena from continuing in his post and to issue directions in favour of its chosen candidate S S Yadav. The ACB is functioning under two chiefs, leading to another round of tug-of war.

The government, meanwhile, has focused on making headlines for its governance, providing a major thrust to education and health in its first budget and announcing initiatives to attract investment. Even as the Opposition is relentless in its attacks - the BJP vocally in the assembly and the Congress, which did not win any seat, on the streets - the AAP, which had its genesis in agitation politics, appears to be maturing, taking its battles politically rather than emotionally.