Not just AAP, but also the Congress needs to identify and promote local talent
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kumar Vishwas' camouflaged attack on the central leadership of the party must be seen in the contest it was made. At a meeting of the party's volunteers in Rajasthan, he said the “days of Delhi's dominance is over”. The party had fared poorly in the Punjab and Goa Assembly elections because of the fair perception that a coterie of leaders surrounding Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was mirror-managing the affairs of the States and not allowing enough space to the local leaders. And in Delhi too, there have been allegations of this very group seeking to dominate decision-making, leading to the AAP's rout in recent elections to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls and an Assembly by-election. It's of course not a coincidence that Vishwas has had problems with this bunch of leaders close to the party supremo, and his remark, his detractors will say, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. But whatever the motivation, there is no denying the truth in his observation that the AAP cabal manning the affairs in the National Capital Territory have come into disrepute over the months. The AAP needs to course-correct and for that Kejriwal has to take the lead. Vishwas, as part of a compromise deal after he virtually threatened to quit the party, was recently made the Rajasthan in-charge of the AAP, and he is keen to begin with a clean slate. It remains to be seen if he will be allowed to do so because he is the first senior leader to publicly raise the red flag of central meddling in the party's State affairs. He has gone so far as to say that no central AAP leaders' photographs would be used for State campaigning, thus confirming the belief that the coterie had played the game-spoiler. If one recalls, certain AAP leaders had even floated the silly idea during the Assembly election campaigning in Punjab that Kejriwal could be the Chief Minister of the State if the party won. If Vishwas' therapy is to be applied sincerely and across the country, it would mean that the AAP has to spot and groom local leaders and ensure that they are not foisted from the top. Since the party does not have an organisation beyond a couple of States outside Delhi, it must first get to the task of building it rather than jumping into every second electoral fray.
The phenomenon of central leaders dominating State affairs is not unique to the AAP, though. It's prevalent in individual-centric regional parties, but it has also been the Waterloo of the national party, the Congress, over the decades. local leaders were chosen on the basis of their proximity to the high command — which means the Congress' first family — rather than on individual merit. The remote-controlling of these leaders and their regimes which followed, damaged the party's prospects in those States to the extent that the impact is being felt to this day. Times and politics have changed. As the Bharatiya Janata Party experiment shows, local grassroots leaders eventually have their day.