18 months ago, a new political revolution was starting to
brew in India. The people of India were fed up by the bad governance & corrupt
practices of political parties across the political spectrum more so by the
incumbent UPA government at the centre. UPA had been a symbol of policy
paralysis, divisive politics, rampant scams, tainted ministers &
“accidental” prime minister. The youth of the country looked at Kejriwal as a
new hope , the man who showed dreams, had the courage to fight them all, had a
good track record as an administrator & who hogged into lime light after
the India against corruption (IAC) movement.
Even the signs were encouraging;
Kejriwal formed a political party & decided to contest the Delhi assembly
polls. He sensed an opportunity & nailed it. People came to support AAP
with donations in whatever form they could. Even the volunteers who were mostly
young & belonging to colleges of Delhi started to spread awareness among
the people by door to door campaigning. The impossible became possible &
AAP managed to muster up 28 seats in the Delhi assembly polls just behind the
tally of 31 of the BJP. The results were astonishing to say the least for a
party which barely came into existence a few months ago. Arvind kejriwal had
become a household name now. People across the country tuned into news channels
which showed AAP news 24/7 . Nation saw a new hope in Kejriwal & after
results people realized that AAP was actually an option even for future
ventures.
This is where the downfall started. I
would say inexperience & over-zealousness came to the fore.
Things started to go awry, AAP supporters went on a rampage without
thinking about the implications & they were led by Kejriwal. It started off
with a referendum of the people. AAP though had a good number of seats but didn’t
have the majority to form the government on their own. They decided to take
support from congress after some SMS poll from the people. This was the first
major blunder. Most of the AAP supporters & voters were not as gullible as
thought by the party. When a verdict had already been given by the people, how
can u form a government based on some SMS poll, that too taking support from
the congress, the party which was totally covered by scams & AAP had
opposed since its creation. People had clearly rejected the congress even then
but AAP went against the people by taking support from the congress.
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After that series of events & U-
turns followed which started to tarnish the image of AAP. Most of its voters
were from the educated middle class background. A sense of maturity was clearly
missing. Seeing the turn of events like confusion over house, security,
official cars ,infighting, the midnight sojourn Somnath Bharti, followed by the
infamous “dharna”, blocking metro, stir against Lt. governor, resigning without
any plausible reason to name a few. Resigning was a big blunder as the man
touted to solve all the problems with all the big promises made was simply
relegated to a “Bhagoda”.
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It seemed as if Kejriwal was in a hurry
to contest the national elections. Ambition of power overtook the real motive
with which he formed the party. Everything began to fall apart. AAP volunteer’s
registrations were done in frenzy across the nation. Overnight it was decided
that AAP would be contesting more than 400 seats. Suddenly people started
viewing AAP as any other party. The difference was diminishing between AAP
& others. Kejriwal thought that the success of Delhi could be easily
replicated all over India. He started blaming everyone around him to get
sympathy of the public. Ironically media became one of his prime targets which
were one of the main reasons of the success of AAP in the first place.
The last nail in the coffin was the
change in the direction of campaign from being anti establishment, anti
corruption to anti Modi. Kejriwal realized that Congress would be rejected in
these elections; hence he decided to take Modi head on. This proved to be a
blunder. All his speeches were against Modi & Gujarat. In fact he decided
to challenge Modi directly from Varanasi. He went to Gujarat & tweeted from
villages that there is no development to be seen. Most of these villages had
WIFI internet connectivity & internet/Mobile networks were easily
accessible which Kejriwal was using to tweet. In Modi , public saw another
agent of change with proven track record & Kejriwal was blown away in the
"Tsu-namo(i)".
The best thing that could have happened
for AAP was that they should have continued to run the government in Delhi
& contested a few Lok Sabha seats this time around. It was a great
opportunity to showcase their governance skills in Delhi with so many problems
to be solved. They could have told their achievements to the people before
going into the polls. Also, the party being new & having a small base could
have fared well if it had contested in selected states & constituencies. If
they would have contested in 80 to 100 seats & planned appropriately, it
was possible that they could have scored 20-25 seats. These constituencies
could have been chosen strategically which was neither a stronghold of BJP nor
Congress. Instead they decide to contest against the big guns like Modi, Rahul
Gandhi, Dr Harshwardhan to name a few, needles to say all losing badly. Most
the money & resources were used in Varanasi where Kejriwal barely managed
to save his deposit. In fact more than 400 AAP candidates including Kumar
Vishwas, yogendra Yadav, Shazia Ilmi lost their deposit making the
exchequer rich, which was their biggest contribution in this election. Even in
their bastion Delhi, all 7 AAP candidates lost by more than 1 Lakh votes. A
great opportunity lost, clearly Arvind Kejriwal committed Hara-kiri.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are strictly
personal in nature. They should be considered in individual capacity only.
