The party knows only the politics of violence
If there had been any doubt in anybody's mind that the Aam Aadmi Party eagerly anticipates the slightest excuse to come on the streets and create mayhem, Wednesday's incident in Delhi should suffice to confirm it. AAP's leaders can keep claiming innocence but visuals do not lie. The country witnessed with shock how supporters of the party, led by the AAP's senior leaders, hurled bricks inside the Bharatiya Janata Party's office, tore down the party's billboards and tried to break open the doors of the premise. One prominent AAP leader climbed on the walls of the office and made a show of calming down the protesters, after having led the mob to the site. It was clear from the visuals that were screened on television channels and reports in the print media that the AAP mob had come prepared not for a silent but violent protest. The agitationists even clashed with the police which came on the scene and asked them to disperse peacefully. The AAP's outrageous conduct is matched only by the deviousness of its publicity machinery, which spread the canard that Gujarat Police had ‘arrested’ its leader, Mr Arvind Kejriwal, during the latter's visit to the State. later, it allowed the word to spread like wild fire that the police had ‘detained’ Mr Kejriwal. The spread of misinformation was unfortunately facilitated by sections of the media which went to town with the arrest and detention theory. It was enough fodder for the AAP leadership in Delhi to incite its supporters to march to the BJP's office and proceed with the shameful incident which the country witnessed on Wednesday. It did not occur to the leaders of AAP to determine the truth. It so happens — and Delhi's AAP leaders could not really have been ignorant of it — that Mr Kejriwal's convoy had been stopped while it was on its way to Bhuj, by the local police, because the administration wanted to confirm that the AAP leader was not violating the Model Code of Conduct that had come into effect earlier in the day with the Election Commission of India's announcement of dates for the lok Sabha election. In less than 30 minutes, after it was satisfied with the response that Mr Kejriwal gave at the police station, the police allowed him and his supporters to proceed.
The matter ended there — and it should have elsewhere too. But the AAP in Delhi interpreted this routine and minor incident as a major offensive against the party by the BJP. It would have been understandable if the AAP had restricted itself to gaining political leverage from the incident — initially, certain AAP leaders did make the laughable suggestion that Mr Narendra Modi had got the AAP chief detained because he was ‘frightened' by Mr Kejriwal's ‘growing popularity'. But the AAP could not resist exposing its anarchist character.
The unfortunate consequences of AAP's misleading propaganda were felt beyond Delhi. In lucknow, for instance, the party's activists clashed with supporters of the BJP at the BJP's office, while the police was nowhere to be seen until things got really ugly. Not just that, lucknow Police did next to nothing to stop the mob of AAP supporters which marched menacingly towards the BJP office after news of Mr Kejriwal's ‘arrest' and the violence in Delhi spread. It is clear from these incidents that the Aam Aadmi Party has adopted a deliberate strategy of violent confrontation to gain cheap publicity ahead of the election. In their desperation to remain relevant, the party and its senior leadership will stoop to any level.