Did AAP short circuit Anna-Mamata entente?

Influential Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sympathisers played a crucial role in convincing anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare to part ways with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee. 

 

Prominent AAP supporters had been in talks with Hazare for several days leading up to the social activist's joint rally with Banerjee at Delhi's Ramlila Grounds on March 12. That Hazare didn't turn up at the public meeting citing poor turn out as a reason was only the last straw that broke Mamata-Anna entente. AAP sympathisers, who continue to remain close to Hazare, had already persuaded him to ditch Banerjee, helping short-circuit the putative entente. 

 

It is difficult to ascertain whether these sympathisers were working at the behest of AAP leaders. But AAP's top leadership was certainly a tad apprehensive about Banerjee's national ambitions, particularly if these were to have Hazare's blessings. It feared Hazare's support to Trinamool Congress candidates that Banerjee planned to field across the country may eat into AAP's support base. 

 

Important voices among the activist fraternity who are not AAP members but support the party persuaded Hazare to distance himself from Banerjee and Trinamool Congress. They told Hazare that some of his new lieutenants were leading him up the garden path and that his association with a political party would dent his image, especially after he had refused to support AAP on the plea that he was against entering electoral politics. 

 

Hazare, say sources close to him,  understood his blessings brought Banerjee and her candidates a legitimacy at the national level but the alliance did little to improve his own image. "Hazare's well-wishers told him how some of his new found lieutenants had colluded with Trinamool's second rung leaders to exploit his image for their own petty ends," said a source.

 

So convinced was Hazare of his fair name being sullied and so incensed by what he later publicly termed a "betrayal" that a couple of days before the rally he asked Banerjee and her key followers to not use his photograph on their election related material, banners, posters and hoardings. But these had already been commissioned. Both Banerjee and Hazare's aides were in no mood to withdraw the banners put up across Delhi or the television spots already paid for.

 

AAP sympathisers then got down to ensuring the meeting was a flop and that Hazare doesn't turn up at the venue of the meeting. AAP's volunteers in Delhi and Haryana worked to ensure the public meeting failed to find any resonance among those who had supported Hazare's Jan Lokpal movement of 2011-12. AAP's sympathisers also reached out to supporters of Left parties and RSS to spread the message that their cadres should also not attend the meeting. Both Left and RSS supporters had backed the Hazare-led Jan Lokpal movement but this once stayed away as both sides viewed Banerjee as a potential threat.

 

On March 12, Hazare didn't need any further convincing to ditch Banerjee when his aides told him the turnout was barely 2000 people and unlikely to increase. It was the perfect denouement for AAP. A day later Hazare shouted foul. He said he had been betrayed by his close lieutenants. According to sources, he found it less embarrassing to admit that he didn't turn up at the meeting because there was barely anybody attending it than confess at having been misled.
 

The incident exposed Hazare's limitations as a leader. More than that it exhibited how AAP may be a party just 18-months old but is already a political party with a strong cadre base in Delhi and has influential friends whom the party can call upon in its times of trouble.