Sisodia’s arrest to impact Kejriwal

Although the jury is out on whether the Central Bureau of Investigation was correct in arresting former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in what is being described as the liquor scam, yet the action is certainly going to have an impact on the Aam Aadmi Party politics and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The legality of the action against Sisodia would be determined by the law courts but the political repercussions of his arrest are very obvious.
Sisodia has been to Kejriwal which perhaps Amit Shah is to Narendra Modi or what the late Ahmed Patel was to Sonia Gandhi. In other words, he and Kejriwal were two sides of the same coin who worked in tandem and had immense trust in each other.
One of the primary reasons why Kejriwal was able to expand his political activity to places outside Delhi was purely because Sisodia ensured that nothing went wrong in the running of the City government. In fact, many viewed him as the de-facto Delhi Chief Minister whose understanding of the administration provided a lot of free time to his friend and boss.
The matter is under the purview of the courts and it is to be seen whether Sisodia gets a reprieve at some stage. However, if he remains in jail like his other colleague, Satyendra Jain, it may reflect on the future plans of the Aam Aadmi Party. Kejriwal has decided to appoint Atishi Marlena, now known as Atishi Singh, and Saurabh Bhardwaj in place of Sisodia and Jain. This may lead to new political equations within the AAP.
Both Atishi and Saurabh are extremely gifted legislators who have contributed to the functioning of their party as well as the government in the past. They may bring in some freshness to the jobs that are assigned to them but it may take them some time before they are able to fill the vacuum created by Sisodia and Jain’s arrest.
It is to Kejriwal’s credit that he has always encouraged young people in his party and during the period when AAP has consolidated its position in Delhi, activists like Atishi, Saurabh and Raghav Chadha played their roles extremely well. There was a time when Atishi and Raghav were two spokespersons who ducked the bouncers from their adversaries while putting across their party’s point of view on national television channels.
Raghav has since then been given a bigger role and is coordinating the party activities in Punjab and other states. Atishi and Saurabh, to begin with, would like to once again revive the faith of the common Delhi citizens in the AAP’s popular measures such as its achievements on the education and health front.
The importance of Sisodia in the AAP scheme of things can be gauged by the fact that in 2017 when AAP was expecting to win the Punjab Assembly elections, Kejriwal and his close associates had taken a decision to elevate him in the national capital. Kejriwal was sensing that the people of Punjab wanted a change and he for some reason failed to reach an accord with Navjot Singh Sidhu, former cricketer and the stormy petrel of the Punjab politics.
Instead, Kejriwal started pursuing ambitions of becoming the Chief Minister of Punjab and thus at this point of time, preparations for making Manish Sisodia as the Delhi Chief Minister in his place had virtually commenced. Kejriwal’s plans received a setback when an aggressive and battle-scarred Captain Amarinder Singh, then with the Congress, raised issues which cast aspersions on his suitability. The Captain described him as “Bania from Haryana”, thus touching an emotional chord with the Jat Sikh community as well as those in Punjab who have never seen eye to eye with Haryana. The result was that the Congress returned to power and the Captain became the Chief Minister.
However, Kejriwal, who has evolved to be both perceptive and an astute politician had the last laugh when he exploited the Captain’s unceremonious exit from power and laid the base for his party’s grand victory in the 2022 Assembly polls. However, he had learnt from his mistakes and therefore brought in Bhagwant Singh Mann, a Jat Sikh face as the Chief Minister. It is another matter that the AAP government in the state is facing criticism on multiple counts but the fact is that this is the only party other than the two big national outfits, which has a government in more than one state.
The political implication of this is that Kejriwal has risen in overall stature and wants to perhaps emerge as the principal challenger to the BJP in the 2029 elections. He has enlarged the footprint of his party and in the process has also achieved success in curtailing the influence of the Congress. For him and BJP, despite their being rivals, there is a common objective of making India Congress Mukt.
Kejriwal was able to achieve so much in such a less time largely because of the unflinching support he received from Sisodia.
During the short journey of AAP, many who were with Kejriwal left on their own or were shown the door. It was only Sisodia as his loyal number two, who was part of the inner party conspiracies which sought to sideline the adversaries and prop up Kejriwal.
This is what needs to be examined closely now. Whether the bond between the two top leaders of AAP shall remain as strong as ever or would things undergo a change. Between us.