AAP’s decline spells out the limits of alternative politics

Indian polity has long witnessed the formation of new political parties by leaders who either leave their parent party or are expelled from it by its leadership. In recent years, the Democratic Progressive Azad Party, founded by former Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad, and the Jan Suraaj Party, launched by former Janata Dal (United) leader Prashant Kishor, readily come to one’s mind. Against this backdrop, the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was remarkable. Its roots in the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement in 2012 gave it a distinctive character. It was born from independent India’s romance with the non-party political process – where civil society activism shifted its gear to enter the terrain of the formal party system to reform the system from within.

AAP captured the interest of the intelligentsia, ignited the imagination of the middle class, and raised the hopes of the aam aadmi (common man), winning two consecutive landslides in the 2015 and 2020 Delhi assembly elections. However, its debacle in the recent Delhi polls, coupled with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s resounding victory, calls for an examination of what went wrong with this experiment in alternative politics.

According to journalist Ajay Singh, who has studied the organisational capacity of the BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi, AAP’s chief failure lay in its inability to build a robust party structure. Soon after its inception, AAP faltered organisationally when it could not retain its founding members together.

In April 2015, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav were expelled from the party for alleged “anti-party activities". Prashant Bhushan later accused the founder, Arvind Kejriwal, of turning AAP into a “high command-oriented” party. In subsequent years, AAP fostered a culture of personality-driven politics at the expense of organisational depth. Within a few years, AAP lost its distinctiveness and soon revolved entirely around the personality of Arvind Kejriwal.

AAP experiment demonstrates the need to unmoor the search for alternative politics from the romanticism of the non-party political process. More crucially, its drubbing in Delhi polls highlights that challenging the BJP requires more than short-term electoral calculations; it demands factoring in the logic of competitive politics, realistically working with other opposition parties, and developing a long-term perspective.

Soon after getting ensconced in power in Delhi, AAP got enmeshed in serious allegations of corruption against its top functionaries and came to resemble any other mainstream political party. Its failure to take a stand on the abrogation of Article 370 and silence during the Delhi riots smacked more of a calculated electoral strategy aimed at garnering the majority vote than a result of principled politics. Kejriwal’s public display of religiosity – visits to temples, exhorting the citizens of Delhi to partake in the celebration of Hindu festivals, announcement of financial assistance to pujari (priest in a Hindu temple) and granthi (priest in a Gurudwara) in the run-up to Delhi assembly elections, etc. – did not strike a chord with the

AAP’s core constituency, who could see through his machinations as electoral gimmicks to make up for the AAP government’s underperformance on the other fronts. Through such acts and utterances, it seemed, Kejariwal was trying to follow a template set up by the BJP for electoral victory.

The Delhi verdict has implications for national politics beyond the city-state and the 2025 Delhi assembly elections. First and foremost, it has robbed the AAP of perhaps its last chance to course-correct and remain relevant as an alternative to mainstream political parties. Second, the results show society’s acquiescence to Hindu nationalism and the relentless march of Hindutva politics. Third, it has exposed the weakness of the Opposition, the I.N.D.I.A (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc, which, at this juncture, is no match for the organisational capacity, electoral strategy, and appeal of the BJP among the voters. Fourth, it is indicative that the electorate are discerning, and the voters will go by the results that the contestants show, by what they do, and not by what they say. And, last but not least, it is yet another wake-up call for all those who believe in universal brotherhood and constitutional democracy to resume their fight against the ills of religious nationalism with renewed vigour and channel their energies into building up robust institutions in the cause of fraternity and the public good.

(The writer is adjunct faculty, Department of Social Sciences, FLAME University)