Charges by rivals, murmurs within roil AAP

With about a week to go for general elections, every party in India is a whirlwind of frenzied activity as leaders shore up support for their candidates. But the country’s youngest political outfit is fighting an existential battle, trying to repel its opponents and keep its flock together.

This moment of extraordinary chaos for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) — especially after its mostpopular figure, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the nowscrapped Delhi liquor policy – has been compounded by the defection of leaders such as its Lok Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Rinku and Delhi social justice minister Raaj Kumar Anand, and the conspicuous absence of a clutch of other senior leaders, especially Rajya Sabha members including Raghav Chadha and Swati Maliwal.

Kejriwal was arrested on March 21 by ED, hours after the Delhi high court denied his request for interim protection from arrest. Two other top leaders and former ministers, Manish Sisodia and Sateyendar Jain, remain behind bars. After Kejriwal’s arrest, the party vowed to hit the streets in protest. But the silence of some leaders has spurred speculation about more desertions and fuelled suggestions that the party is imploding.

The AAP is attempting to set a furious pace on the ground with press conferences, combative interviews, and reaching out to allies in the INDIA bloc. But while one set of leaders – such as recently freed Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, and senior Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj, and even Arvind Kejriwal’s wife Sunita – have become the face of the party, another set of leaders appear to be sitting out a crisis that threatens to damage a party that held ambitions of becoming India’s biggest Opposition outfit.