“The size of this victory is scary,” Arvind Kejriwal said in a victory speech to party workers, who showered him with petals after the 2015 Delhi assembly election results in which the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) secured 67 of the 70 seats. “Let us not become arrogant,” he cautioned his party members. Though the party lost five seats in 2020 Assembly polls, the victory march continued.
Both Kejriwal and his party members, however, did become arrogant. In fact, Kejriwal’s egotism reflected soon after 2013 election when a nascent AAP secured second position with 28 seats and formed the government with the outside support of the Congress – the party it trounced. He defeated the then chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who had become synonymous with the development of Delhi.
The Congress had ruled for 15 years and the Dikshit government continues to be rated among the best in Delhi since the National Capital Territory of Delhi got a legislative assembly and an elected government under Article 239AA of the constitution, introduced through 69th Amendment in 1991. Still, she lost with a huge margin to a novice in her fourth attempt and the party was reduced to eight seats.
The defeat was the result of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement during 2007-11, which originated with the support of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The emergence of the AAP from the IAC was not expected. Activists Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav who assisted in transforming the movement into a party and laying the foundation of the AAP, looked forward to clean politics away from the Congress and the BJP. But they did not expect the turn of events leading to their ouster. Kejriwal established his supremacy as the party supremo right at the beginning.
Similarly, the Opposition INDIA bloc created before the 2024 general election to trounce Narendra Modi-led BJP, of which AAP was a part, did not realise that AAP, looking at its own expansion, will try cutting the Congress to size. Kejriwal’s refusal to contest the Delhi election in an alliance with the Congress party, and conceding a few seats to the latter, harmed both the parties and even the INDIA bloc. However, though the alliance’s victory was still not assured, for a precise arithmetic of the AAP’s and the Congress’s vote share (43.75% was AAP’s vote share and 6.34% was Congress’s) may not necessarily have added to 50% of votes, it certainly indicated a better chance of defeating the BJP than the present predicament.
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Whether or not the Congress should still have fielded candidates to ‘put Kejriwal in place’ is a moot point, but in an atmosphere calling for an alternative alliance, all parties and leaders must keep individual ambition in check. A question – whether the Congress should still have been magnanimous – would be asked for a long time.
Now, it is important here to underline the arrogance of Kejriwal and his party members. Despite being a 28-member party in second position in 2013 election, which formed the government with the outside support of the Congress, he challenged every bit of the constitutional and administrative system, defining himself an anarchist. While his anarchism overflew on the Rajpath (now Kartavya path) a few days before the Republic Day function, his minister Somnath Bhartiya was embroiled in an avoidable tiff with the police for a wrong cause. After his return to office with a brute majority in 2015, he would get into spats with senior bureaucrats even if he was on the wrong foot on procedural issues; even insult them though being an ex-bureaucrat himself, he was expected to be aware of procedures and rules. A holier-than-thou attitude pervaded the party and other ministers were haughty and sanctimonious too.
This resulted in the party’s journey on a non-ideological and misconceived governance path. First, the AAP started aping the BJP’s Hindutva without stating so. As an alternative to the BJP’s Ram Mandir, they initiated worship of the deity Hanuman by recitation of Hanuman Chalisa with great fanfare and simultaneously Sundar Kand (from Tulasidas’s Ram Charit Manas) recitation on different occasions also continued. Additionally, pilgrimage grants for senior citizens were announced.
Notably, its misconceived governance agenda of free electricity and water had a long-term and more pervasive impact. The squandering of public money impacted development work in Delhi. Of the promised ‘mohalla’ (neighbourhood) clinics and improvement in Delhi schools, only the latter was done well and is still remembered.
Meanwhile, impatient with having Delhi under the control of another party, the prime minister resorted to unconstitutional politics. The Government of NCT of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023 removed services from the legislative competence of the Delhi legislative Assembly; established the National Capital Civil Services Authority consisting of the chief minister, chief secretary of Delhi, principal home secretary of Delhi – this authority was empowered to make recommendations to the Lieutenant Governor (LG) regarding transfers and postings of officials and disciplinary matters; and empowered the LG to exercise his sole discretion on several matters including those related to National Capital Civil Services Authority, and the summoning, prorogation and dissolution of the Delhi legislative Assembly. The LG also consistently blocked legislative and policy initiatives by the elected AAP government of Delhi.
This wasn’t all.
The top leadership of the AAP, including Kejriwal, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh was put behind bars on questionable corruption charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which made it difficult for them to get a bail. Post-election survey by Lokniti-CSDS indicates that “corruption charges levelled by the BJP and Congress against the AAP” did impact the poll result. Moreover, Kejriwal’s lavish renovation of the chief minister’s residence, who in his first stint insisted on a modest accommodation and riding his Wagon R car, also demolished his honest image.
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The larger impact of the AAP’s defeat on the national politics will be two-fold. It establishes Modi and the BJP as electorally invincible in large part of the country with better strategy and organisational structure. Second, the hilarious dig on the defeat of the AAP by Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah, ‘aur lado aapas mein!’ (‘Fight more amongst yourselves!’) says it all.
While campaigning for the AAP in Delhi, despite the Congress also contesting, the INDIA bloc allies – the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Samajwadi Party (SP) –signalled that the bloc’s prospects in upcoming elections would likely face significant challenges.
Ajay K. Mehra is a political scientist. He was Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2019-21 and principal, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College, Delhi University (2018).
