POINT OUT

POINT
OUT
threatened to derail this year’s Republic
Day celebrations. His backing of his law
minister Somnath Bharti’s vigilantism and
utterances and his own speech on R-Day
focusing on Delhi Police’s functioning and
the dharna at the Rail Bhawan, besides jibes
of his trusted aide Kumar Vishwas, have left
a bad taste in the mouth of his admirers
across India.
Through his electoral success in Delhi,
Kejriwal had taken the national capital and
the nation by storm and appeared to be
rewriting rules of the game by addressing
the concerns of the aam aadmi (common
man). His zeal to rid the capital off VIP culture,
and his unilateral focus on clean politics
and corruption-free governance had
endeared him to the masses across India
– urban or rural, irrespective of caste, creed
or religion. As he called it a new struggle for
independence, the youth connected with
him for the change.
After winning the vote of confidence
in Delhi Assembly and taking crucial
decisions regarding water and electricity
tariff, the AAP started making the right
noises. Its support across India swelled
up – from Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune
to Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chennai and
Trivandrum – giving a clear wakeup call
for conventional political parties to change
the way they functioned. Delhi’s message
COVER STORY GENERAL ELECTION
to the politicians was very clear, “If you
don’t change, people will change you.”
Top honchos like Adarsh Shastri,
grandson of former Prime Minister Lal
Babahur Shastri, left his lucrative job with
Apple Inc to join AAP. Meera Sanyal, India
head of the Royal Bank of Scotland, V Balakrishnan
of Infosys and Capt G R Gopinath,
who gave India low fare air flights, too
joined AAP. With such a large number of
prominent people with a clean record, from
social sector, corporate world and bureaucracy
joining AAP in the hope of making a
difference in politics, the going was billed to
be tough for the two major political outfits
AAP was being seen as the only
party that was in a position to
stop the Modi juggernaut. That
was until the first fortnight of the
AAP government in Delhi. Within a
month’s time, internal squabbles,
revolt and overzealous ministers had
ensured that they had little to show
on governance
– the Congress and the BJP. The ascent of
AAP had even eclipsed brand Modi on the
social media for a while.
AAP was being seen as the only party
that was in a position to stop the Modi juggernaut.
That was until the first fortnight
of the AAP government in Delhi. Within
a month’s time, internal squabbles, revolt
and overzealous ministers had ensured
that they had little to show on governance.
People began to think that AAP had been
thriving only on rhetoric.
It will be a sad day for the Indian
democracy when AAP and Arvind Kejriwal
lose the plot to the egos and overzealousness
of some of his men. For the
common man across India, the ascent
of AAP was the beginning of the muchneeded
change in Indian polity – something
that the educated youth, middle
class and the lower middle-class always
dreamt about but had never been able
to achieve. Instead of getting worked
up and red-flagging everything right or
wrong, it would be desirous of Kejriwal
to muzzle the fighter within him and
work towards making Delhi a model
state. Even if he achieves a little bit of
that, it will be his greatest contribution
to the country and support and votes
will follow. Then, he will not have to play
the votebank politics.
24
FEBRUARY 2014