Numbers Without Belief: The AAP–BJP 'Merger' and the Downside of Politics Without Ideology

When Raghav Chadha – who was once among the most prominent faces of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday (April 24) along with his six fellow AAP Rajya Sabha MPs, their actions warranted an uncomfortable question to be asked – What happens when political representation becomes detached from ideology itself?

Technically, as Chadha said while announcing his decision, the AAP MPs have functioned within the Constitutional framework, wherein if two-third members of a parliamentary party agree, the law permits a merger with another party without any risk of getting disqualified under the anti-defection law.

But democracy has never run on arithmetic alone. It runs on trust, continuity, and the assumption that representation means something deeper than legal compliance.

The trajectory of the AAP and Chadha is telling of the crisis that any political project faces when it doesn’t conform to a specific ideology and instead sprinkles its rhetoric with a mix of populism and grand promises aimed to woo the urbane, proverbially “apolitical” voter who feels everything is wrong with the political system.

The origins of the AAP lie in the India Against Corruption movement that demanded a strong Lokpal to battle institutional corruption in the government. Led by figures such as Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal, it represented a powerful moment of public anger against corruption and political stagnation.

But anti-corruption, however powerful as a sentiment, is not a complete ideology. It does not define positions on caste, class, communalism, or structural inequality.

Over time, AAP’s politics has often functioned in a space which has allowed it to encash the public anger against the existing system, first in Delhi, where it swept to power with an unprecedented majority in 2015 and 2020, and then once again in Punjab when the state’s public, disillusioned with the political establishment, voted overwhelmingly for the AAP in the 2022 Assembly elections.

But AAP’s governance-focused politics which is heavily reactionary to the public mood and at times doesn’t hesitate to cater to the prevailing sentiment of the majority community, has a massive chink in its armour, as demonstrated by the mass exodus of its Rajya Sabha MPs.

The seven individuals who chose to join the BJP come from corporate backgrounds, public life, from technocratic strategists to celebrity figures along with people such as Chadha, who owed his meteoric rise to his once unflinching loyalty to AAP supremo Kejriwal.

Back when he was nominated, Chadha symbolised a generational shift in parliamentary politics. But the deeper question is not about age or background. It is about political grounding.

When representation is shaped more by proximity and profile than by ideological clarity, political affiliation becomes easier to reconfigure – and easier to justify. Representation, in such cases, risks becoming transactional.

AAP’s ideological dilemma becomes more apparent when compared with other political parties of the country.

Despite the fact that the AAP once managed to catch the imagination of the public restless for change with its clean slate and promises, after creating initial ripples, it has come nowhere close to challenge either the Congress or the BJP in terms of pan-India acceptability.

Identifying the need for a clear ideological stance, the Congress has, in recent years, attempted to expand representation through individuals rooted in public issues and social movements.

Since the last few years, Rahul Gandhi has relied on a greater emphasis on important issues related to caste and social justice to take on the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and challenge Hindutva.

On the other hand, the RSS and the BJP have taken an increasingly hardline position on Hindutva, which has been the main plank of the saffron ideology, since many decades.

Even other political parties which have consistently governed states for decades such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Left parties continue to rely on ideologically structured political traditions for expansion and retaining their support base.

At such a juncture, the AAP stands out as a party stuck in no man’s land, wherein its stand depends on the general mood of the public and not ideological coherence.

For instance, the AAP officially supported the reading down of the Article 370 in 2019 by the BJP government. The party chose to not criticise the BJP fearing that taking a stand against the controversial way the ruling party ended Kashmir’s special status might result in the AAP losing the votes of the majority community.

Later, when its own leaders were sent to jail for by central agencies, the AAP alleged it was being maliciously targeted by the BJP which was misusing the state apparatus. When the same state apparatus had arbitrarily detained Kashmiri politicians who stayed captive for prolonged period of time, the AAP had remained silent.

It also turned a blind eye when the 2020 Delhi riots resulted in heavy loss of lives, a majority of the deceased being from the Muslim community.

By choosing to not take on Hindutva directly and instead using Hindu religious symbolism and calling themselves as Hanuman Bhakt didn’t help the AAP, as the Hindutva voter would always prefer the BJP, the original pioneer of the politics of religion.

The AAP’s stance of caste is also steeped in ambiguity, as its position on the issue has changed frequently, at times advocating for merit but later supporting for the caste-census after other parties led by the Congress turned it into a nationwide movement.

Moreover, we live in times when central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) routinely conducts raids against Opposition politicians. Among the seven AAP Rajya Sabha MPs who joined the BJP on Friday was Ashok Mittal, whose premises were raided by the ED  just days back.

In such a context, ideological grounding becomes not just philosophical – it becomes institutional protection. Those with a clear ideological stance are more likely to withstand pressure and at less risk of shifting loyalties.

The motley group of people whom AAP nominated, most of whom didn’t have a track record of being affiliated with any specific political ideology for a long time, had high stakes in businesses and were now mellowed by the fear of central agencies such as the ED, were easy pickings for the BJP.

When nomination becomes transactional, when ideology becomes optional, and when representation is shaped more by proximity than conviction, politics begins to lose its internal anchor.

The law may still function. Institutions may still stand. But something quieter begins to erode – the expectation that political affiliation means something beyond convenience.

Because in the end, democracy is not sustained by numbers alone. It is sustained by what those numbers believe in when they enter Parliament.

 Akhil Chaudhary is a human rights lawyer based in Rajasthan. He posts on X @akhilchaudhary.

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