Ashutosh writes: With Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest, AAP faces a crisis of its own making

The AAP is a product of the movement against corruption. Before launching a political party, its leaders had no experience in active politics. Unlike other political parties, the AAP does not have institutional memory to fall back on, and neither does it have the institutional robustness to face a crisis of this magnitude. While such crises often throw up other leaders, for the present, this looks unlikely for the AAP. Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, who could have filled the vacuum in Kejriwal’s absence, are already incapacitated and languishing in jail. In the absence of all three, there is nobody who is acceptable to all the party leaders, MLAs, MPs, office bearers and cadres. Not allowing a second line of leaders to rise has been one of the biggest failures of the AAP. It’s well-known that the party is so centralised around Kejriwal that nobody is allowed to be autonomous and decide independently.

From its inception, the AAP has been combative — a reflection of Kejriwal’s personality. He is the one leader in Indian politics who revels in crises and is polarising like Modi. He can be liked or hated, but never ignored. His genius lies in his single-minded pursuit of a goal and he has the rare ability to rise from the ashes like a phoenix. He was the architect of the Anna Hazare movement which shook the entire political establishment, leading to the Congress party’s decline. If Congress today is in the ICU, it’s because of Kejriwal. Modi and the BJP skilfully exploited the situation created by Kejriwal and formed the government at the centre.

Several obituaries were written for his political career when Kejriwal resigned as CM after 49 days in the saddle in 2014. Then, the AAP lost all seven seats in the 2014 parliamentary election. This was when even its leaders lost hope of the party winning the assembly elections in 2015. But it bounced back with an unprecedented mandate, winning 67 out of 70 seats. This was possible because Kejriwal could galvanise the party and connect with the people. But today when it is in deep trouble, he will not be free to lead it. The provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), under which he is charged, are such that bail will not be easy and he might have to spend months in jail.

The first — and biggest — challenge before the party is saving its government in Delhi, although the AAP says that Kejriwal will run the government from jail. This argument makes for good rhetoric but is devoid of legal legs to stand on. It exposes the inherent weakness of the party, showing that either Kejriwal trusts no one among his colleagues or that he is not well-versed with the constitutional framework. A chief minister is the fulcrum of the government and if he is in jail then, for all practical purposes, he is unable to run the administration. To take this position would be to play into the hands of the BJP and the Modi government, as it will lead to a constitutional breakdown, becoming a fit case for the central government to invoke Article 356 for the imposition of President’s Rule in Delhi. Ideally, Kejriwal should have resigned and let the party elect a new leader who could be the CM in his absence, like Lalu Prasad and Jayalalithaa did when they were arrested. Even Hemant Soren, before getting arrested, paved the way for Champai Soren to replace him.

The AAP’s current strategy will backfire and might even lead to a situation where Delhi’s deemed statehood status is withdrawn and it goes back to its pre-1993 status, with no elected government or Assembly. That would be a disaster for the AAP.

The AAP’s emergence was a ray of hope, hailed as the return of idealism in Indian politics. It had the potential to emerge as a national alternative to the BJP and Congress. The AAP embodied the rejection of the old establishment, with the goodwill to destroy the old edifice and construct a new political structure. But alas, its lack of a sense of history and absence of a vision for rebuilding the nation has led to the AAP becoming the disappointment that it is today.

The writer, a former member of AAP, is co-founder and editor of SatyaHindi and author of Hindu Rashtra