Is the AAP imploding? Swati Maliwal episode points to the fractures within

Several AAP leaders are uncertain about their next political step, and some have already quit. More may desert the party either before the polling in Delhi and Punjab or after June 4

The Aam Adami Party (AAP) seems to be on the verge of an implosion. The maverick behaviour of several of its leaders points to widening fault lines within the party.

The arrest of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's close aide, Bibhav Kumar, has brought the party crisis to his doorstep. The Swati Maliwal episode is likely to deepen these cracks.

The party has long been the target of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). No attempt has been spared to incapacitate the party before the general election, including the arrest of Kejriwal and several of his colleagues. The seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi it holds are precious to the BJP, especially in an election where no Modi wave is evident. Kejriwal and AAP stand in the way of winning them again.

This would explain why Union Home Minister Amit Shah criticised the Supreme Court's judgement granting interim bail to Kejriwal as "not a routine and normal judgement." He claimed that "many people in the country" believed that Kejriwal had been given "special treatment." The apex court reacted uncharacteristically by welcoming "critical analysis or even criticism of the judgment."  

It is widely suspected that the ruling BJP is fomenting most—though not all—of AAP's troubles. AAP leader Atishi has claimed that the BJP "blackmailed" Maliwal into participating in a "conspiracy" against the chief minister because she was facing corruption charges in an illegal recruitment case.

Maliwal's role in hiring 223 contractual staff members in the Delhi Commission for Women was referred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2016. The case has apparently now moved towards prosecution, and there is speculation that the file may have been sent to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

There are other credible explanations for the episode that engulfs the AAP.

According to a report in The Economic Times on May 14—before the parties involved began to dissemble—Maliwal was upset with Kejriwal's suggestion that she resign from the Rajya Sabha to accommodate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the senior lawyer who secured Kejriwal's interim bail.

The report quoted an unidentified senior AAP leader claiming, "She was told that she would be adjusted from a Punjab seat as the party expected Harbhajan Singh (cricketer and AAP's Rajya Sabha MP) to "quit" and join the BJP. She "misconstrued it as an attempt to side-line her", he claimed, and rushed to the chief minister's residence where it was she who "manhandled" Bibhav Kumar.

The Rajya Sabha MP herself has a different version.

Her description of the alleged assault on her is both graphic and grave -- including mention of her shirt being pulled by Bibhav Kumar and her "shirt flying up," etc. The language of the complaint ensures that besides charges of culpable homicide (IPC 308), voluntarily causing hurt (IPC 323), wrongful restraint (IPC 341) and criminal intimidation (IPC506), Kumar can also be charged with insulting a woman's modesty (IPC 509) and assault by a man against a woman "with the intention of disrobing her or compelling her to be naked" (IPC 354B).

As the former chairperson of the Delhi Commission on Women, Maliwal would have known how serious and unverifiable her vivid description of the assault could be, even as the police tried to investigate it.

It is, however, puzzling why Maliwal failed to file a formal complaint with the police for two days after the event, although she went to the local police station immediately after the incident transpired. Her two-day silence and belated medical examination create some misgivings.

There is also a video clip that shows Maliwal abusing and aggressively threatening Bibhav Kumar. At the same time, she is seated on a sofa and security personnel politely ask her to leave. When asked to leave, she dares them to throw her out, "touch her if they dared", and threatens to get someone (presumably Kumar) sacked, abusively referring to him as bald or "ganja" in Hindi. One may speculate whether Kejriwal refused to meet her, fearing just such an altercation and levelling of serious charges against him.

If the Maliwal episode was meant to reverse the shift in public emotion that Kejriwal's release on interim bail had generated, then it has come a bit late in the day –barely a week before campaigning for Delhi polls stops. The eager-to-please media has obliged and shifted its reportage from Kejriwal to the alleged violence against Maliwal.  

The party, however, remains in turmoil. Several AAP leaders are uncertain about their next political step, including whether to join the BJP. They have, by and large, maintained silence on Kejriwal's arrest and avoided campaigning. They may desert the party either before the polling in Delhi and Punjab or after June 4, when it becomes clear who will form the next government.  

Some have already quit. On the eve of the general elections, AAP's lone MP in the Lok Sabha, Sushil Kumar Rinku, joined the ruling BJP and was fielded as its candidate from Jalandhar. AAP's Delhi minister, Raj Kumar Anand, also quit the party after Kejriwal's arrest. Kailash Gahlot, another minister, has been missing from most AAP events lately. Rajya Sabha MP and cricketer Harbhajan Singh, who did not protest against Kejriwal's arrest, is also allegedly poised to desert the party, although he denies such intent.

Maliwal was apparently also on the exit route and was persuaded to stay back, or so some AAP leaders thought. However, her police complaint suggests she may have changed her mind again.

What does this mean for the future of AAP's campaign? The party will be destabilised on the eve of the Delhi polls. However, the electorate may perhaps no longer be as naive as political parties presume. They have probably already made up their mind. Since Kejriwal himself has not been implicated directly in the Maliwal assault, those voting for him may see no reason to change their voting preference.