VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
The stunning victory of the Aam
Aadmi Party in the Delhi Assembly election is a stuff of legend. This will be
remembered as a watershed in the political history of the country, the way the
victory of Janata Party in 1977 is remembered for first non-Congress Government
and the way Narendra Modi will be remembered in the annals of history for
demolishing political stereotypes in the May 2014 battle.
AAP’s victory was about how a few
ideologically close people, guided by a vision for Delhi
with a charismatic leader and excellent communicator at helm, started on a
mission and tried to realise the dreams they saw.
They made mistakes on the way and
fell down but quickly got back to their feet and marched on. Paulo Coelho in
his “Alchemist” said when you want something from the core of your heart all
the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Arvind Kejriwal wanted to
win Delhi Assembly polls desperately and he succeeded in proving Coelho
correct.
Less than a month down the line
after the magical moment in New Delhi ,
what is catching the eyeballs now is the differences within the party which was
once billed as the epitome of consensus politics. Aam Aadmi Party then talked
of taking decisions based on consensus in the style of a panchayat or gram
Sabha and even went way past in history to eulogise the way the kingdom of
Vaishali practised democracy in the sixth century BC. That was by consensus and
through democratic principles of voting.
When the results of Delhi
became clear and the unprecedented landslide became clear, Kejriwal warned his
supporters not to become arrogant. He said that it was arrogance which had led
to the fall of the Congress and BJP in Delhi .
He was right. But just four weeks after that speech from the balcony of his
party office in New Delhi amid
showering of petals, many now say that AAP has for all practical purposes
become a one man party and divergent views do not have any place in the ruling
party of Delhi .
Has AAP now become arrogant? Less
than a week after the famous speech, a ban was imposed on media persons from
entering the Delhi Secretariat. Of course, media is intrusive and they will
remain so as they demand answers haunting the people from those in Government
buildings, Secretariats, State Assemblies and Parliament.
This can’t be a reason to ban the
media from a place where you find information. In fact, wasn’t Kejriwal himself
also demanding answers all his life ever since he took off from Indian Revenue Service
and started as a crusader for Right to Information with Aruna Roy who too had
left the IAS and was working for transparency in the system. Didn’t he write
letters to Government departments to seek accountability and information on
projects and funds related to the people? This is what media does and AAP
headed by Kejriwal banned their entry from the Secretariat.
Then you have the biggest
question haunting not only the AAP sympathizers but all those who saw potential
in the party as a viable alternative to run of the mill politics — internal
democracy in the party. This is where AAP would start resembling Congress soon
as the culture of party supremo and high command is set to become institutional
in the fledgling party.
Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan
were summarily removed from the Political Affairs Committee of AAP. Though the
formalities were observed in removing them, it was clear that it had the stamp
of Kejriwal all over it.
Sample this. If Sonia Gandhi or
heir apparent Rahul Gandhi wants to remove an AICC General Secretary and also
show to the world the facade of consensus, all they have to do is to sound
their intentions to the Congress Working Committee. Didn’t we see something
similar happening with Yadav and Bhushan? Doesn’t this happen in the Congress
all the time? Can the Gandhi family tolerate and accept any dissent or
dissenting views in the party? The answer is no. So where is the difference
between the first family of the Congress and the supremo of AAP?
What I see here is a personality
cult strengthening in AAP, something which is quite common in the personality
centric Indian politics. So the talk of practicing alternative politics based
on consensus is dead even before it started. Congress has perfected personality
and dynasty centric politics over the decades and there are no two opinions
about it.
BJP started with consensus
politics during the era of Vajpayee and Advani but now it’s evident that
Narendra Modi is the epicentre of a new age where personality dominates and
consensus takes a backseat. AAP too is similar in many respects where it is
gradually becoming clear that it is Kejriwal’s show all the way.
Yadav, the soft spoken and
erudite spokesman of the party wants to take it beyond the confines of Delhi
to the neighbouring Haryana and Punjab and then to the
rest of the country. Remember, AAP won four seats in the Lok Sabha elections
from Punjab and none from Delhi
in the May 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
In Punjab ,
Assembly polls are less than two years away and with an impressive performance
to boast off in the Lok Sabha polls with 25 per cent of the vote share, it was
perhaps the right time for AAP to make inroads in the traditional bastions of
Congress and Akali Dal.
What is wrong if Yadav wants to
expand the base of the party and contest the Assembly polls in Punjab .
In Haryana, AAP decided not to contest the Assembly polls as it was fresh from
the defeat of the Lok Sabha polls. The move was resented by many as it lost an
opportunity to build cadres and a support base even though strategically AAP
felt that concentrating on Delhi
was more important so that there was no loss in synergy. But if the party does
not concentrate on Punjab where there is a real
political possibility, then it would indeed be a great political miscalculation.
No one for sure knows what
Kejriwal is thinking on Punjab . When Yadav first spoke
about the expansion of the party in other parts of the country after the
victory in Delhi , the AAP boss
disagreed with him. But when the ground situation is conducive for the party in
a State like Punjab , it would be interesting to see what
position Kejriwal takes. You cannot become a prisoner of your own idea, let
winds of change blow within the party. It’s only when there is exchange of
ideas that theories are built and the roadmap for the future is drawn.
If AAP has to repeat Delhi
elsewhere, it will have to introspect seriously now. People had enough of the
controversies surrounding Yadav, Bhushan, Mayank Gandhi, Anjali Damania,
Admiral L Ramdas and others.
It will have to move beyond one
personality, one State and will have to quickly discard the Congressisation of
the party in which sycophancy and high
command culture dominated and there is little or no place for consensus. (March
9. 2015)
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