AAP''s fortunes on the decline

S Nihal Singh

By coming a poor second to the BJP in the local bodies' elections in Delhi, Mr Arvind Kejriwal's AAP has confirmed the trend of a precipitous slide in popular esteem.

Contrast this showing with the unprecedented scale of its victory in the state Assembly elections in 2015 in which it wiped out the Congress and left the BJP with three seats. What has gone wrong with AAP in such a short period? The "Modi magic" is not the answer. Rather, the party's sharp decline has deeper causes.

AAP grew out of Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement, which caught people's imagination, with Mr Kejriwal first appearing as a great devotee keeping his leader company in observing a fast. At the same time, he saw the political potential of the movement to strike out on his own.

Mr Kejriwal, a former civil servant, was prescient in coming to the conclusion that with a declining Congress  and the aspirations of the BJP to come to power on its own terms, there was room for a new party to fill the secular space and unfurl the flag of a new rejuvenated India.

Support for the AAP came from diverse sources across the country, with members of the middle class hungry for a new party that promised to fight for the country's good. In particular, Mr Kejriwal attracted two invaluable new members, Mr Yogendra Yadav and Mr Prashant Bhushan, the former an idealistic social worker and the latter a distinguished lawyer fighting for the right causes. Mr Kejriwal could not have hoped for better fellow workers.

Therein lay the rub. The two had minds of their own and were not afraid of speaking their mind. Mr Kejriwal saw himself as the towering leader who wanted "yes men", not his equals who questioned his policies. As the Delhi Assembly results crowned him king, his ambitions grew manifold. He saw himself as more than the chief minister of a state with limited powers and sought to branch out countrywide. A manoeuvre master-minded from his rest-cum-cure centre in Bengaluru saw his two comrades leave the party.

Mr Kejriwal's initial victories in the then Akali-BJP-ruled Punjab whetted his appetite. Leaving Delhi to his deputy, he spent more and more time in Punjab and in Goa and Gujarat when not being treated in Bengaluru. The results of the recent Assembly elections were a bitter disappointment, with the Congress winning Punjab and the AAP going nowhere in Goa.

With the poor showing in the local Delhi elections, Mr Kejriwal has reached a crossroad. Are all the hopes rested by him as the leader of a new phenomenon to disappear into thin air? True, many of the old-timers have been leaving him with different degrees of disappointment and disgust. But there are still segments in the party hoping against hope that he can reform and inject the spirit of the early days.

A revival of AAP is unlikely precisely of the reasons that have brought it to its present plight. It is one thing to sell yourself as a strong man when you are on the ascendant, quite another when you and your party are going downhill. If he were not so vainglorious and had concentrated on making the best of his job in Delhi, it would have been a different story. Everyone knows the limitations of the Delhi job, but instead of making a song and dance about it, if he had concentrated on the Delhi job, instead of castigating the Lieutenant-Governor and everybody else in the establishment, he would have been on a sounder footing.

Leaving aside the fortunes of AAP for a moment, what are the broader consequences of its performance? Is the space for a new party, with the Congress in a sorry state, restricted? Much depends on the trajectory of the BJP well on the way to the country's hegemon.

The direction the BJP is taking in the states it rules is disappointing in some respects. Be it in the cause of cow protection or otherwise, the swagger with which BJP functionaries and their paramilitary followers are abusing their authority in opposition to the men or women on duty is a shame. The police are often hapless spectators as they surround police stations to free the accused and at least one Uttar Pradesh BJP MP has the temerity to insult the police outside the residence of a senior police official.

Power, it seems, has gone to the head of BJP officials and supporters and if the party is unwilling or unable to discipline its flock, it would pay a heavy price in future elections. It is all very well to strike the right notes on fighting for the poor and soaking the rich, but people have a way of administering bitter medicine once they are disillusioned.

AAP, it would seem, has lost its chance to shine in a BJP-ordered firmament. Will a new leader appear to take the place of a declining Congress? That lies in the lap of the future, but given the Indian ethos and the political layout, a few markers for success can be laid out. First, like the rule of politics laid out by Indira Gandhi, the new party must be for the poor and the deprived in a country full of riches and abject poverty.

Second, the new party must redefine secularism in a country in which the ruling party is accentuating communal divisions to achieve and maintain power. Secularism is not minority appeasement, as the BJP would have us believe. It is enshrined in the Constitution and is essential for knitting together a country of many faiths and ethnicities. Third, it will need a leader with wide appeal without overweening personal ambition.

When a new party will arrive and who will lead it remain in the lap of the future. The truth is the more the BJP's saffron spreads in the country, the greater will be the urge for a new dispensation.