JOIN USThe Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) dirty leadership war has disgusted the aam aadmi who had nursed high hopes from the Kejriwal’s government on development and governance fronts. The massive mandate given to the AAP in Delhi was testimony to its growing credibility for alternative politics hinged on a new grammar of politics.
Many thought that the AAP’s Delhi debut was pregnant with possibility of achhe din both for the party and Delhi electors; but it is painful to see bure din for both owing to leadership war between Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan on one hand and Arvind Kejriwal and company on the other.
In spite of Kejriwal’s efforts to distance himself from day-to-day verbal warfare, the message is clear that he is remote controlling his men against Yogendra and Prashant. This has greatly dented not just the AAP’s credibility to govern but also his personal reputation. What has really gone wrong with AAP’s top leaders? To begin with, three things have happened.
One, political and intellectual leaderships have taken different trajectories. While Kejriwal is undisputedly the political face and aggressive, Yogendra is the unanimously acknowledged intellectual backbone of party but is ‘too soft’. While the AAP claimed that it will write a new grammar of politics, Kejriwal does not seem to have taken that commitment in letter and spirit after he tasted massive power.
As Yogendra tried to provide intellectual leadership in rebuilding the AAP beyond Delhi, many seem to have persuaded Kejriwal to believe that his real intent is to provide leadership in governance matters as well tantamount to interference. Though Kejriwal claimed status of chota aadmi without aukaat, he behaved otherwise failing to give space to someone with better intellectual stature and political acumen. Kejriwal seems a victim of personality cult wanting to run the AAP as a one man show. This is his first fault.
Secondly, Kejriwal failed to dissociate the AAP from treading the beaten path of Indian parties where we find disconnect between governmental and organisational wings of the party with domination of the former over the latter. While taking oath of office as chief minister, Kejriwal vowed to focus only on governance in Delhi. That was interpreted differently by different people. But Yogendra’s interpretation seemed sensible; he explained that while the AAP may not indulge in electoral politics outside Delhi, his party will continue to shape-up organisationally in other states and raise public issues.
Kejriwal was persuaded to treat that interpretation as opposed to his own line of thought, though it was his personal opinion and not the party’s take. In fact, what Yogendra suggested was in the best long-term interest of the party. By governing well in Delhi, Kejriwal could have given a model of good governance and by developing party organisations in other states, he might have generated a ray of hope in minds of people about possibility of the AAP replicating the Delhi model of governance in other states as well. Kejriwal failed to see that this was in perfect consonance with Yogendra’s approach. That was his second fault.
Captive of old grammar
Thirdly, the AAP’s commitment to write new grammar of politics transcending caste and communal politics had been dumped by Kejriwal in the party’s factional dust bin. Kejriwal had promised people welfare and development; they trusted him and gave unprecedented mandate. But, he has made the AAP a captive of old grammar where factors of caste and region have acquired predominance in decision making.
Two developments are clear. First, power race is on for the second position in the AAP. The most threatened person is Manish Sisodia, the deputy chief minister, who is afraid of losing to Yogendra who has emerged the AAP’s intellectual leader, and, who, by his humility, scholarship, and impressive discourse in public domain, has won the hearts of people.
Kejriwal and his coterie might have won in Political Affairs Committee (PAC), but they have lost in public esteem. Probably, a group of not-so-competent leaders in the AAP felt threatened by the intellectual stature of Yogendra and Prashant, and to offset that, they entered into a cartel against them.
Second, some petty leaders without public base and belonging to Thakur-Bania castes and coming from pockets of Uttar Pradesh are trying to capture leadership positions by positioning Yogendra against Kejriwal and deliberately taking sides against the former.
They have fully captured Kejriwal, who, by keeping away from the PAC meeting despite being in Delhi, clearly indicated that he was the main person operating behind the scene.
Kejriwal’s multiple faults will not only harm the AAP, but also adversely impact governance in Delhi. Are people repenting their decision? Is the AAP too small for too big a mandate? Kejriwal has lost opportunity to provide people of India both alternate political space at national and regional levels and transformative politics scripted largely by Yogendra, Prashant and himself. Surely, that signals bure din for the AAP.
(The writer is Chair, Department of Political Science, Christ Church College, Kanpur)