Stop being such a crybaby

After facing a crushing defeat Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is going through one crisis after another. The arrest of Arvind Kejriwal over his refusal to sign a bail bond did not provoke people of Delhi to stand up against that. It only gave him and his party a bad name. Many leaders are leaving the party sensing its uncertain future and there are internal squabbles among the leaders. 

Arvind Kejriwal decided to form a political party out of a movement against corruption despite the opposition Anna Hazare, the leading light of the movement. It was a wise decision of Kejriwal to concentrate only in one Assembly Election of Delhi, though elections were being held in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh as well. Delhi was the epicenter of the movement against corruption and the chance of success of the party was highest in Delhi. The strategy to have a humble beginning paid it and it succeeded in forming a government in the national capital territory.

But after the formation of its government in Delhi, it lost its direction. Forming the government was not a wise decision, because AAP had not got the mandate to rule Delhi. It was lured by Congress to form the government. The objective of Congress was two-fold in facilitating the formation of Kejriwal government. On the one hand, it wanted to promote Kejriwal to cut into the anti Congress votes all over India, so that it could win more seats even with reduced number of votes. On the other, Congress wanted to expose AAP, so that it got discredited among those people, who had high expectations from the party of the movement. It was miscalculation of Congress, to expect from AAP to help it. In fact Congress had got ruined in Delhi because of AAP and only same thing should have been expected of it during Lok Sabha election. Kejriwal changed his strategy during the parliament election and he made communalism the main issue and Narendra Modi the main target and hence he joined the rank of Lalu, Mulayam, Maya, Nitish and Congress. Instead of dividing anti Congress votes, AAP started dividing anti Modi votes. It only enhanced the confusion among the anti Modi voters.

So the first objective of Congress was defeated. It has succeeded partially in achieving its second objective, i.e., exposing AAP among its supporters and sympathisers. The credibility of AAP has nosedived and it can be seen in the figures of online donations, it gets daily. On 8 June, it got merely Rs 8,293 from its donors. There was a time, when its daily donations would be even in crore. On 4 April, when Kejriwal was slapped in Dakshinpuri area in South Delhi, the party has received Rs 1.46 crore. When Kejriwal had announced to contest against Narendra Modi from Varanasi, his party had had got over one crore donation. When the result of Lok Sabha election was declared on 16 May, AAP received Rs 22 lakh as donation. After that the donation started declining. Now the figure of donation has come down in thousands. It is clear that its bad performance in Lok Sabha elections has dented its credibility as potent force. The infighting in the party has further made things worse for it.

After Delhi success, AAP leaders started making one mistake after another. Its first mistake was to form the government. It should have taken a firm view that it did not have clear cut mandate of people and thus was unable to form the government. And after forming the government, it should have continued in it as long as possible by taking the people in confidence that it could not fulfill all its commitment because of the lack of majority in the Assembly. It should have waited for the Congress to withdraw the support.

The blunder committed by AAP leaders was to take on Narendra Modi directly. During Delhi Assembly Election, it has discovered in its internal survey that 31 per cent of people supporting it were fans of Narendra Modi. That is why it did not criticise him during the campaigning fearing that Modi fans may dissociate themselves from AAP. But some leaders thought that by raising the issues like gas prices, they can dent the credibility of Modi. It was a miscalculation. In fact many careerist people have entered into it after the formation of Kejriwal government of Delhi. They were not common people, but Kejriwal introduced them as Aam Aadmi. Now these careerists are on their way out. Kejriwal must not ask them to continue in the party, since it is not a leaders based party, rather issue based party. Delhi may face Assembly election in October this year. All efforts to form a government have failed. Congress has refused to help Kejriwal once again. BJP leaders were also hoping to form its government by engineering defections from AAP. But it is very difficult to split AAP. Even the top leadership of BJP is not willing to indulge into the dirty game of horse trading, split and defections.

That is why midterm election of Delhi Assembly is almost certain and Arvind Kejriwal should concentrate on the impending election alone. IPA