Running before learning to walk

AAP is unravelling, and the party’s top leadership is responsible for this

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal may have managed to keep the party together on Wednesday by striking a compromise with dissident leader Kumar Vishwas but his problems are far from over. It would not be wrong to say the party is unravelling and voters are tired of its shenanigans. In other words, the party has squandered the huge mandate they got in 2014. To make matters worse, it has a very strong BJP snapping at its heels. After their impressive victory in the Delhi municipal elections, the BJP is now determined to win Delhi in the 2020 assembly elections. Here is what BJP president Amit Shah said on Tuesday: The party’s final destination was not civic bodies but the Delhi government. Urging party workers to unite and prepare for the next ‘goal’, he said, this success will lay the foundation for elections in 2020.

There are several reasons for this AAP debacle but the two main ones are: The party tried to run before learning to walk; and instead of focusing on governance, it continued to stick to its agitation-mode politics. While there is some truth in the fact that the Centre has been creating roadblocks --- the AAP government in Delhi should have viewed it as a professional/ political hazard. But instead of taking these challenges in their stride, the AAP team went on for a confrontational approach. Moreover, it made its Punjab assembly gambit a do-or-die issue, taking its eyes off Delhi.

The party’s dismal performance in the MCD elections only allowed the discordant voices to emerge stronger. The party was expected to restructure itself after its electoral losses. But did nothing. Whether AAP agrees or not, there is stasis in the party and it has to reinvent itself if it wants to stabilise and expand its footprint in the future.