Lengthening shadows of AAP

Arvind Kejriwal. Freedom from opposition!

Raju Korti
When charity becomes the opium of the privileged, you get a breed of leaders like Arvind Kejriwal. The Convener of the Aam Aadmi Party is presently presiding over one of the most disastrously conducted political experiments that has reduced the party to a theatre of the absurd, and an outfit with fulminations and machinations much in the mould of the Janata Party in 1977.
Although it was seen coming, the swiftness with which the party's National Executive has chosen to kick out and turn Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, two founding members into persona non grata, shows that Kejriwal and a bunch his incongruous party men have learnt little or nothing after they frittered away their first chance at power with a minority government that lasted barely 49 days. Yet, their ill-fated electoral debut bolstered by the presence of activists like Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi, came in for as much public sympathy as criticism. The impression then was it was a nascent party with lots of promise and trying to come to grips with itself. As it turned out, the party and its leaders did not and could not develop the temperament of a ruling dispensation. You couldn't fault the baffled electorate of Delhi if they were unable to decide whether they had chosen a ruling party or an opposition party.
The whiff of change that came from the party that promised corruption-free and open governance finally succumbed to the hokey pokey seen across all the parties. It was an irony of sorts that while stridently espousing the cause of Lokpal Bill, the Kejriwal lobby had the audacity to ask its own internal Lokpal to skip the National Executive on the specious but untenable excuse of "avoiding confrontation". So the party that held out great expectancy and transparency witnessed a series of unsavory developments with allegations flying thick and fast. And all this when Yadav and Bhushan were at pains all along to explain the people that dissensions were a given in any democratic set up. The ferment in the party spilled over to even the ruling BJP at the Centre with Kiran Bedi -- among the most prominent face -- switching loyalties with the BJP. As was only expected, Bedi sank with BJP in Delhi. Surprising for a party that boasts of an array of "intellectuals" in its fold! Shazia Ilmi, another known face kept grudging that she never got her due despite her credentials as founder member, a woman and Muslim. She quit because she was denied a contest from Delhi and packed off to Rae Bareilly to fight a lost battle against Sonia. Her walk-out was followed by Captain C D Gopinath and Medha Patkar embarrassed to see the party crumbling even before its construct. The AAP was besieged by the coterie culture rife in other parties. I am reproducing these vignettes only to show that this couldn't have been a party that swore by the common man.
For reasons of expediency Yadav and Bhushan stuck around. To Yadav's credit, he was perceived as a think tank with the kind of socialist leanings the party should have desperately leant on. But good people rarely take off in politics and Yadav's humiliating defeat in Haryana only made matters worse for a party that never seemed capable of extricating itself from endless bickering.
Come to think of it, the AAP concept wasn't bad at all as initially it touched a chord with the masses in a very short span. Its leaders, however, had no clue how to handle success. The grassroots were weak and organizational management was next to nil. The volunteers on whom the leaders piggy rode were never consulted and transparency became a casualty as Kejriwal started emerging as a superego. The subtle move to wrest all powers from the Parliamentary Affairs Committee and vest it in National Executive was an obvious maneuver to insulate Kejriwal from any opposition in the party. The expulsions and the sordid drama in the Executive proved that beyond any shadow of doubt. The AAP's world -- justifiably or unjustifiably -- didn't have any plans for other states. It came across as a national party with regional outlook that derived its moments of glory in believing that Delhi conquered was India conquered. Kejriwal's so called attempts to arrest the party's slide were pathetic to say the least. Worst, they were construed as events that suited him and meant to eliminate dissidence.
Taking a very conciliatory view of Kejriwal and his party, I had written in September 2014:
It is tough to be Arvind Kejriwal these days. The man who stirred the conscience of the nation not long ago is now witnessing to his chagrin that the ground from under his feet has slipped so quickly and how. Looking at the shambles in which the Aam Aadmi Party finds itself in -- a situation of its own making --  it appears that the outfit needs to pull out a rabbit from its hat to undo the damage done in the wake of a series of rapidly unfolding events after AK quit as the chief minister of Delhi in a huff.
For major part, AK cannot shirk his responsibility as a leader. It is now obvious that he presided over a team of self-serving people who had no clue in hell what the party actually wanted to do or where it was headed. In the process, he frittered away the advantage with a chain of self-goals. In the kind of politics practiced in this country, a cavalier approach to leadership and governance is not particularly advisable. In the run up to the phenomenon he so painstakingly tried to create, it didn't occur to AK's wisdom that being a good bureaucrat is one thing and being a political leader is quite another. A good politician knows when to beat a tactical retreat, but AK kept compounding his errors with more errors. Take for instance his obdurate stand in seeking bail in the defamation case against Nitin Gadkari and then doing a somersault to bow to the dictates of the circumstances. A cursory look at the way AAP and its exuberant leadership has meandered in the recent months, is an eloquent commentary on the political inexperience which was sought to be made up with a peremptory outlook in dealing with party matters.
Internal bickering is a malady with all parties without exception. Like the proverbial goldfish, AK had no place to hide given that his every move was scanned and scrutinized. Although this may sound like a hindsight, AK messed up his chance with power. Thereafter, the party slid into a downhill so much so that it has a huge job on its hands to extricate itself from the morass. The sordid story was complete when rats started deserting the sinking ship, Shazia Ilmi and other disgruntled souls showing amply that they had stuck around only to extract their pound of flesh. AK himself seemed ill-equipped to stem the rot. The fall was as swift as the rise was meteoric.
To begin with, AK must learn to handle people and situations with restraint. Dharnas and campaigns cannot be the resorts of those in the saddle. You cannot fault people if their perception of AAP is that of a party that doesn't know whether it is in power or out of it. The electoral result is not just about one man capturing the imagination of the nation. If success is the Heads, failure is the Tails of the same coin. The AAP story begs the question: What went so terribly wrong for a party that seemed to be riding a crest a few months ago and is now threatened with the prospect of sinking without a trace? Lack of political acumen, inadequate man-management skills, one flip flop after another or sheer over-enthusiasm and over-confidence?
I am afraid, I read it correctly and to be honest, I am not too enthused about it.