When Aam Adami Party (AAP) was
formed and decided to contest the election, many people ridiculed them and
predicted that they won’t make any impact on Indian politics. This was because many
believe that the social movements can’t be successful as a political party. They
are integral and important part of democracy but have to remain apolitical and
act as a pressure group on the ruling class from outside. We have seen a rise
and a fall of Sharad Joshi. But AAP proved differently and exception to this
belief.
When they demonstrated fantastic
performance in Delhi Assembly Election in Dec-13, all the conventional wisdom
of Indian politics collapsed. Many rightly said that if Delhiites would have
slightest idea that AAP can reach near to half way mark, they would have given them
decisive majority. All main stream political parties have forgotten the basic principles
of contesting election such as person to person contact, informal meeting with
the voters and society during the campaign. They are now more focused on money
powered, big rallies, personalities, celebrities, television debates and very
artificial sounding campaign.
In contrast, AAP focused on
building network at ground level, empowering common man, self-motivated
activism, constructive usage of social media, funding election through micro
finance from voters and transparency in the entire approach. Selecting new faces
brought the freshness and energy into their campaign. Their idea of separate manifesto
for each constituency was so innovative that other parties have to follow the
suit. The most importantly, after so many years of democracy, a common man believed
that the election can be fought without money power, connect with elites, a
dynast and charismatic oratory skills. Their spectacular performance in Delhi
election had profound impact across the country. After so many years, a common
man felt that established can be defeated and they can be a part of government!
AAP gave hope to the nation that politics can be clean and forced mainstream
political parties to introspect.
All initial euphoria started
converting into disarray in few days. AAP could not understand the difference between
an activist and a ruler. Delhiites happily accepted that they had taken support
from Congress for forming a government. Now it was a time to demonstrate to the
nation that common man can run the government. However, they did very little to
build upon their distinctive feature and prepare a ground work on fulfilling their
manifesto. The unexpected windfall of success went into the heads of Arvind
Kejriwal and his team and started dreaming at national level. Their confrontational,
publicity seeking, heroism, populistic, threatening, anarchist and chaotic way
of governance is highly deplorable. Their approach of demonizing politicians, bureaucrats,
government servants, industrialists is highly reprehensible. They are misleading the nation. They knew that they
can’t introduce Jan Lokpal bill when parliament has already passed Lokpal bill.
The state responsibility is to accept it in the state. The state has complete
liberty of changing/modifying it. However, AAP was not interested in the constitutional
way. The very reason of resignation of government is unconvincing when none
asked for their resignation, Congress did not withdraw their support and none
sought for no-confidence motion. They approached voters whether to accept
Congress’s unconditional support or not but conveniently forgotten them while resigning.
They had moral ground for resigning as they had already lost the majority on
the floor. But they conveniently ignored it and continued.
Nobody joins politics to sit in the
opposition perpetually or help defeating others or get defeated, but to govern
as per their principles, ambition and promises within the constitutional
framework. Running government is all about patience, courage, belief, firmness,
digesting criticism, dialogue, consultation, confrontation, cooperation and occasional
receding. But AAP chose to run away from the responsibilities.
The experiment of AAP is disastrously failed. AAP
may take very high moral ground. But they helped Congress, to whom they have
been criticizing for corruption, to grab the government with the least number
of MLA’s. Now Congress government in the center rules Delhi under Presidential
Rule! I wonder what they have achieved by resigning. They have committed a big
crime by pushing Delhiites into one more election. Voters of India are very wise.
They will give you ONLY one chance and AAP has missed it!