NEW DELHI: The primary reason for the Aam Aadmi Party losing power in the national capital is that instead of making the campaign issue based, its leadership decided to make the election Arvind Kejriwal centric. The move boomeranged and the party fared poorly in the polls and in the process, two of its topmost leaders, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia have lost their respective battles against formidable BJP nominees.
Soon after being released on bail from the Tihar Jail, Kejriwal had announced that the people of Delhi would determine whether he was guilty of the charges and if he had committed any wrong. He should have said that the courts would decide the case, but he was over keen to bring himself into the picture.
On Saturday, the people decided and handed over a defeat, from which his entire party may find it extremely difficult to recover, and the loss could have ramifications for his own future and that of the party in states like Punjab.
Many of his well-wishers had been surprised when at every level Kejriwal put himself and his “honesty” ahead of the overall party agenda. The problem his government faced was because of its clash with the Centre, which under the Constitution has overriding powers and through the Lt Governor, can nullify any act of the elected representatives. The issue was that the Delhi Assembly was merely a debating chamber and was completely dependent on the Centre. Cordiality would have helped in getting some tasks accomplished, but there was complete breakdown of relations at every level.
Under the circumstances, Kejriwal’s pitch should have been for a full statehood and unless that was given, there was no point of having an elected government when all the major decisions were to be taken by the Centre. The current Delhi Assembly was formed following the recommendations of the Sarkaria-Balakrishnan committee, which had been asked by the then Union Government to devise a structure which would help in ending the multiplicity of authority. Balakrishnan, who virtually did the operational role, had instead of ending the multiplicity of authority, created confusion by empowering the bureaucracy.
Kejriwal’s problems commenced when, unlike his predecessors, he tried to clash on every major point with the Centre and expected that people would stand by him. The average citizen does not know the fine distinctions that exist and therefore even during the campaign, their grouse on law and order issues which should have been addressed by the Centre, were aimed at Kejriwal, who did not have any control over the police.
In addition, when Kejriwal, Sisodia and Satyender Jain were in jail, there was no one who was looking after the party interests. Sanjay Singh did all he could after coming out, but the BJP was already in the process of breaking the AAP. Kejriwal did not easily trust those who had been elected on his party’s ticket and instead relied only on a handful of people, many of whom had scant knowledge of contesting polls.
In the two elections which the AAP won in 2015 and 2020, Sanjay Singh and Ashish Talwar were the ones who interacted with the nominees and implemented the party strategies. This time, this effort was lacking. The AAP nominees were never in the fight with the kind of confidence that they were in the earlier polls.
There was also this general belief that the RSS may not allow the AAP to be diminished. The Congress had always maintained that the AAP was the “B” team of the RSS but in these elections, the Sangh dispelled this impression by standing behind the BJP nominees. Kejriwal’s one-time mentor, Anna Hazare, and Kumar Vishwas, both of whom had backed the AAP like a rock, appeared disillusioned with the performance of the Delhi government and seemed to have welcomed the result.
There was also this supreme irony that the BJP and the Congress, this time, had a common objective of making “Delhi AAP Mukt”. Kejriwal had strained his own relations with the Congress after playing the spoiler in Haryana, Gujarat and Goa and this time around, the Congress used the opportunity as the payback time.
By ensuring Kejriwal’s defeat, the Congress has also ensured that even if it failed to open its account in the capital once again, the AAP supremo would find it very difficult to figure amongst the contenders of leading the non-BJP opposition in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.
The Delhi elections have further ensured that the I.N.D.I.A bloc stands decimated and it would be very difficult for the alliance to regroup again, something which the BJP would be very satisfied with. The Congress may view the development in its favour since it has given them hope in Delhi for the future, with the AAP likely to implode further and the regional players would have to remain within their limits while being critical of the grand old party.
While it is not proper to write the political obituary of any major player, Kejriwal shall have to reinvent himself in order to stay in the arena and if he has to be of some value in the future. Not a very easy task and he has nobody but himself to blame for this plight.