The rise and fall of AAP. An open letter to Mr. Arvind Kejriwal

Pratim Ranjan Bose

Dear Mr. Arvind Kejriwal

How is life at Tihar? I am sure, the sweltering heat and the whine of mosquitoes don’t make it apleasurable experience.

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But, that is nothing new for you. You have spent nights under the open sky while agitating on the streets of Delhi for greater part of the last year.

Your anti-corruption movement rocked the nation. We also welcomed your decision to attack the issue head on by joining politics.

That you struck the right cord is evident in the emphatic support your Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) received from a wide cross section of the society, in the Assembly election in Delhi, in December 2013.

Though the mandate was fractured, you played the cards well by accepting the challenge to form a minority government in the national capital.

AAP has not merely caught the fancy of the post-ideological generation in India. But, you rekindled hope of atransparent government in many, across the world 

We didn't expect you to talk about ideologies - borrowed or home-grown. There are many already in fray to pursue those lines. And, we, the children of an open economy – who have more faith on GDP than isms, caste or religion - are sick of them.

We wanted relief from the existing course of politics that thrives on “black money” and “cut money” on the garb of all those tall talks. We are not insensitive to the poor. But, we are sure that those who thrive on the politics of disruption are of no good.

In you, we saw the promise of a new wave in politics – a social democratic force you may say, that will make anti-graft movement into a political reality.

But you belied our hope.

Hope belied

Looking back you got more support that any newborn party could expect. Live aside commoners, your movement got crucial support from two most important sections of the society: Media and industry.

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In a welcome change from the past, we saw celebrity industrialists and managers openly voicing their opinion against corruption.

Some like Captain Gopinath of Air Deccan fame or the former Infosys board member V Balakrishnan joined AAP. Many others like Deepak Parekh and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw welcomed your anti-corruption movement.

Everyone knew that AAP is not a structured, cohesive, political entity – a quality much needed for the long life of a political force. Yet, everyone banked on you. They expected you to bring about broad spectrum changes in course of Indian politics.

Surviving on stunts

Sadly you failed them.

The runway success has gone to your head. And, instead of focussing on the painstaking job of building a party, brick by brick, you started aspiring for quick returns. You wanted to be a kingmaker in Indian coalition politics.

Your decline started on the day you, then Chief Minister of Delhi, took to the streets in support of your cabinet colleague Somnath Bharti whose abusive remarks and unsolicited actions on some African women shocked our sensibilities.

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Your actions were improper and unbecoming of a Chief Minister to say the least. And, since then you went ontaking one wrong step after another. 

Instead of leaving your mark as an administrator, you had quit from the position of Chief Minister of Delhi in a jiffy . Clearly it was done to gain sympathy of voters in the just concluded Generation Election. If that was not enough, you shifted from your anti-corruption plank and practically towed the line of Socialists and Leftists in countering Narendra Modi’s BJP.

You, a kindergarten student in politics, thought it is cakewalk to take on the seasoned players of the ability and stature of Modi. You invited him to fight from Varanasi. In the end, he defeated you by close to 400,000 votes.

You were still lucky to have cornered 200,000 odd votes in your favour. But the situation of most of your party nominees (excepting in Delhi and Punjab) is even worse. Social activist Medha Patkar got merely 76,000 votes at Mumbai North East. Meera Sanyal who left a cushy job at Royal Bank of Scotland, got only 40,000 votes at Mumbai South where 10,000 people pressed the NOTA button.

Of the three Bangalore seats, V Balakrishnan got a maximum of approximately 40,000 votes! And, all those tall talks brought Kumar Vishwas merely 25,000 votes at Amethi.

You used the contributions from AAP sympathizers in contesting from 432 seats as against 340 odd of BJP. In the end you wasted ` 1 crore through forfeiture of deposits in 414 seats ! Excepting four seats in Punjab, you are a big failure in this year’s General Election. And, that too after receiving unprecedented media support.

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Clearly, if elections could be won by stupid stunts, you should have been India’s Prime Minister for next 50 years.

In fact, looking back, one may wonder whether you and your senior colleagues like Bharti or Prashan Bhushan wanted to survive by creating controversy. Perhaps that was your ploy to attract media attention. You were converting the precious news space for publicity of AAP.

Aam Aadmi or ‘Mango people’

It was a smart ploy. But just as all good things must come to an end, you are now paying the price of your misdeeds. The anti-corruption hero has now become the comic relief of the nation. And, in merely a span of four months AAP is relegated to the party of ‘Mango people', as Robert Vadra once described it.

Mr. Kejriwal somewhere in the course of the journey for last three months, you and some of your famed colleagues pressed the self-destruction button. AAP is now on its way to extinction. Some shreds of it might remain, in some part of the country, but only as splinter groups.

Your days of fame are over. But, the worst part is, you have killed the common man’s (Aam Aadmi) movement that we all wanted to flourish. No one will take such movements seriously in the years to come.

And, we would welcome you perish in some jail for that heinous crime – murder of a dream!