The Aam Aadmi Party Is Not Going down Without a Fight

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New Delhi: On April 10, 2024, Delhi minister and prominent Dalit face of the Aam Aadmi Party, Raaj Kumar Anand, resigned from the Kejriwal cabinet and party membership. Anand alleged that AAP which emerged from the anti-corruption movement a decade ago and which had pledged to change politics is now “trapped in corruption”.

“The politics hasn't changed but the politician has changed,” Anand took a parting shot at the Delhi chief minister days after his arrest.

His resignation came days after AAP’s two most-important Dalit faces in Punjab, Sushil Kumar Rinku and Sheetal Angural, joined the BJP, making similar allegations.

The setbacks for AAP came on the heels of the Enforcement Directorate pinning down almost the entire top leadership of the fledgling party in the alleged excise policy corruption case. Kejriwal was the latest in the series of arrests. Arrested earlier, AAP minister Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain are among AAP leaders still languishing in prison, waiting for their trial to begin. Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh who was imprisoned for over six months recently got bail.

Nevertheless, Anand’s words may sound a little mighty of him, given that he himself had been one of the ED’s targets in November 2023, when the agency searched 12 premises owned by him or his business associates in Delhi, and later linked his role in alleged hawala payments to China and evasion of customs duty worth Rs 7 crore on imports.

Anand, like Rinku and Angural, may soon join the BJP, which will make him the 26th opposition leader facing a corruption probe to have switched over to the saffron camp. A recent Indian Express story revealed that cases against 23 out of the 25 opposition leaders facing corruption charges were either closed or put in cold storage after they joined the BJP. Speculation is also rife about the possibility of other AAP leaders.

Amidst such pressure, AAP’s second line of leadership – Sanjay Singh, Atishi Singh, and Saurabh Bharadwaj – have put up a brave face. The party has launched a door-to-door campaign called “jail ka jawab vote se” in Delhi and Punjab, and hopes to swing BJP votes in its favour because of its dogged canvassing around the Narendra Modi government’s perceived excessive measures to shut down the opposition on the eve of Lok Sabha polls.

Almost every day, AAP leaders have trained their guns on the BJP. Days ahead of Kejriwal’s arrest, Atishi and Bharadwaj held press briefings to talk about the alleged threats that they have been receiving to withdraw from its alliance with the Congress or be ready for Kejriwal’s arrest. A couple of days ago, AAP leaders like Sanjay Singh told the press that the BJP was attempting to “break AAP” and its legislators who were allegedly offered crores of rupees to leave the party, even as they were warned about their subsequent arrest. Singh has now asked all his party MLAs to hit the ground to garner support for Kejriwal.

As the Delhi chief minister’s arrest has become AAP’s biggest talking point, the party has also firmly held ground in its commitment towards the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, the opposition front. In fact, the first INDIA rally that was organised in New Delhi should singularly be credited to AAP, which mobilised almost the entire crowd at the Ramlila Maidan.

In two recent interviews, both Atishi and Singh told The Wire that AAP is committed to a united opposition, even if it means losing a little bit of space in their own strongholds. They said that their campaign will be anchored around BJP’s alleged corrupt practices in the context of the saffron party being the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds scheme.

Indeed, over the past few days, AAP has emerged as the most prominent opposition party to highlight the fact that BJP has received over 50% of the total donations made through electoral bonds since 2018. Its leaders have persistently spoken about the issue in their respective constituencies to project a lack of level-playing field in the upcoming polls.

At the same time, it alleged that Hyderabad businessman Sharath Chandra Reddy who is now out on bail in the excise policy case and whose statement as an approver led to Kejriwal’s arrest had donated Rs 52 crore to the BJP through electoral bonds, the first installment (Rs 5 crore) of which was bought days after his arrest. The rest of the bonds were purchased by Reddy’s firm Aurobindo Pharma soon after he was released on bail.

AAP’s persistently aggressive canvassing against the Modi government, and a palpable sympathy towards the popular Delhi chief minister, has now forced the BJP’s hand and it is desperately trying to poach AAP’s core voters.

Dalits constitute 17% of Delhi’s population, according to a CSDS-Lokniti survey, and are divided in their support to AAP and Congress. With Muslims (14%) and Sikhs (3%) in favour of the INDIA bloc, there is a chance that Dalits unite under the opposition's umbrella. The BJP’s attempt to poach AAP’s Dalit legislators like Anand and also, reportedly, Punjabi Khatri (5%) leaders like Raghav Chadha, is clearly aimed at preventing a possible consolidation of all these communities against Modi.

The BJP, which garnered over 55% votes in Delhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, should have been secure but its last-minute manoeuvres signal that they sense anti-incumbency, or even voter fatigue, on the ground. Whether or not the AAP-Congress combine will outsmart the formidable BJP, rich in terms of resources and official machinery, remains to be seen. It is clear, however, that AAP is not going down without a fight.

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