The Congress has in the past pulled down Governments it backed, and for the silliest reasons. Naturally, the Aam Aadmi Party has been wary of the Congress's outside support. Arvind Kejriwal has to take a tough call
Given its recent conduct, the Aam Aadmi Party stands to lose the enormous goodwill the people have demonstrated through their votes for the debutant party. Instead of accepting the electoral verdict with humility and a sense of responsibility, AAP leaders have been exploiting it to ridicule and condemn their opponents. Worse, they have been demonstrating the kind of arrogance which has proved to be the nemesis of the Congress. The most charitable comment one can make on the AAP’s behaviour is that being a novice, it has not been able to come to terms with its outstanding performance in the Delhi Assembly election. But people do not have limitless patience, and soon Mr Arvind Kejriwal and his team will realise that euphoria can evaporate as quickly as it comes.
By now it is obvious that the AAP does not want to shoulder responsibility and is more comfortable with agitational politics. After the Bharatiya Janata Party turned down the lt Governor’s offer to form a Government, it was for the AAP to seize the moment. After all, it was better placed to rule after the Congress wrote to the lt Governor extending its “outside” support to the AAP. That gave the latter a working majority of 36 in the 70-member House. But it dodged the chance and instead told the lt Governor that it would get back within 10 days.
What followed was mysterious. Mr Kejriwal wrote to the BJP and the Congress demanding to know their stand on some 18 issues he enunciated to the leadership of the two national parties. In the first place, the BJP had, unlike the Congress, never extended support to the AAP. There appears no sense, therefore, for the AAP to factor in the BJP’s response in its decision to form a Government or not to do so. What the BJP believes on those 18 points is meaningless in this context. As for the Congress, how does it matter where it stands on the issues that Mr Kejriwal has raised when the former has already extended “outside” supportIJ It’s not as if a common minimum programme is being prepared.
It was never the AAP’s intention to find a way out. The questionnaire it dispatched to the two national parties was just a ploy to buy time and score brownie points. An AAP leader has already let the cat out of the bag by saying that the letters its party had sent was to “expose” the Congress and the BJP. It appears that the AAP has lost no time in learning the art of devious politics.
The AAP has sought to cling on to the high moral ground that it had occupied in the run-up to the Assembly election and bask in the glory of the triumph. It cannot be denied that its victory has shaken the national parties by the scruff of their necks and forced them to review their politics. It’s also true that politics in Delhi will never be the same again — regardless of whether the AAP remains strong or loses steam in the coming months. The problem is with the AAP’s agenda. Mr Kejriwal has repeated ad nauseam that the AAP entered electoral politics not to occupy power but to change politics. But politics can be cleansed from the outside too, with the help of pressure groups like the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption, of which he was once a part. The AAP leader must not forget that his party is a consequence of that mass movement and that the lokpal Bill — even if somewhat truncated — is an outcome of that uprising. He entered the political arena to clean the system from within, but now he wants to be the eternal outsider. No wonder his detractors are calling his brand of politics as ‘NGO politics’.
Of course, Mr Kejriwal may still change his stand and accept to form a Government with the Congress’s outside support. After all, there are sections within his party that believe the AAP must not let go of the golden opportunity. But the AAP supremo understands that raising slogans on the streets and abusing politicians is easier than governing and delivering on the fantastic promises he has made to the people. This is not to say that the AAP is incapable of governance, but to set such doubts to rest the party must bite the bullet.
If there is one valid reason for the AAP to be wary about the Congress’s magnanimous though not ‘unconditional’ support from outside, it is the latter’s record in such matters. The Congress has in the past pulled down Governments it had supported, and for the silliest of reasons. It had knocked down the Charan Singh regime after enticing the farmer leader to rebel against Prime Minister Morarji Desai and form the Government; it had disposed of the Chandra Shekhar Government after it caught two policement allegedly snooping on Rajiv Gandhi; and, it had pulled the rug from under the feet of the Deve Gowda and the IK Gujral regimes too. The Congress’s offer of outside support to the AAP is a ploy to keep the Damocles sword dangling over the new party and ensure that the latter is so shackled that it’s unable to perform.
But the days of the 1990s are history. Assuming that the AAP were to form the Government with the Congress’s outside support, the Congress will be exposed to even more decimation in Delhi if it decides to betray its promise and dislodge the regime. Such an adventure could even further strengthen the AAP, and enhance the public clamour for stability in the form of a BJP Government. Both the Congress and the AAP must bear in mind that a fresh election to the Delhi Assembly will in all probability be held alongside the lok Sabha poll, and the mood then will favour the BJP more than these two parties.
In other words, if the AAP continues to maintain its obstinacy and force another election upon the people of Delhi, the results may not be as encouraging for the party. Mr Kejriwal and his people will then be back to the drawing board, and it could affect the AAP’s prospects of an expansion beyond the national capital. There is already a buzz that Kumar Vishwas of the AAP will contest against Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi. Such hopes will gain traction if the AAP accepts responsibility in Delhi and performs within the limited space it will have with the Congress breathing down its neck.
Perhaps a section of the AAP feels that it is better to approach another Assembly poll and the lok Sabha election with its slate clean of the muck that will stick once it assumes power with the help of the Congress’s crutches. It must remember that the people are enamoured of a novice so long as it shows the courage to be accountable. The voters don’t like shirkers of responsibility. The AAP has entered the hard world of politics with a promise. If it cannot or does not want to deliver, it must be ready to pay a price. A broom that does not sweep is of no use.