Charges by rivals, murmurs within roil AAP with just days to go for LS elections
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.
Missing from the front lines
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.
After Rinku’s defection to the BJP last month, the party has no Lok Sabha members. In the Rajya Sabha, it has 10 members – three from Delhi and seven from Punjab – and many have not joined the party’s programmes.
The party denied that a section of leaders were deliberately inactive. Bharadwaj said efforts were being made to falsely project cracks within the AAP. “Even earlier, the Rajya Sabha MPs (of Punjab) did not even come to join the protests. Before Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest, did you ever see AAP Punjab MPs joining a protest being organised by AAP near the BJP office? Did you ever see Harbhajan Singh climbing a barricade? All these talks are baseless. I believe that efforts are being made to project cracks within the ranks of AAP with the intention to break AAP. It is nothing more,” he said on Friday.
Among those whose absence has been noticed the most is Punjab MP Raghav Chadha, a close aide of Kejriwal who handled important departments in the party, became the Rajender Nagar lawmaker in 2020 and served as the vice-chairman of the Delhi Jal Board, before being sent to the Upper House in 2022.
Chadha, who has in the past led the party’s attacks on political rivals, has been in London since last month for eye surgery and is yet to return, though his wife, actor Parineeti Chopra, returned ahead of the release of her film Amar Singh Chamkila.
Chadha has, however, been vocal on X over the arrest of Kejriwal and AAP’s politics, and has changed his profile picture to one of the CM behind bars, in accordance with the party’s line. He has posted about the party’s press conferences and addresses by Sunita Kejriwal. “INDIA that is Bharat, will unitedly protest against Arvind Kejriwal ji’s illegal and outrightly political arrest,” he said on March 24. But the delay in his return has fuelled speculation amid the uncertainty. Chadha did not respond to requests seeking comment.
Another senior leader currently abroad is Delhi Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal, who made a name for herself as a street fighter in her previous stint as the chief of the Delhi Women’s Commission. Maliwal, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha in January, is currently in the US where her sister is recuperating from an illness. She is scheduled to attend an informal meet-and-greet with the public in New Jersey on April 13.
“Sister’s treatment is getting completed and I am coming very soon… I will fight against enemies of the country like you from the streets to Parliament…,” she posted on X on March 29, in response to a post by BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya. Maliwal didn’t respond to queries.
Delhi Rajya Sabha MP, ND Gupta, is not active on social media, but participated in the
INDIA bloc’s rally on April 1 and the collective fast in Jantar Mantar on Sunday.
In Punjab, the party has six Rajya Sabha MPs other than Chadha. This includes cricketer Harbhajan Singh. On social media, the former India spinner has posted about the IPL and religious events, with no reference at all to his party’s turmoil. HT couldn’t reach Singh. Another AAP Rajya Sabha member is businessmanturned-politician Ashok Kumar Mittal, also the founder of Lovely Professional University.
The other members from the state – Balbir Singh Seechewal, Vikramjit Sahney and Sanjeev Arora – have also remained largely quiet. Only Sandeep Pathak, who is also the party’s national general secretary (organisation), has taken active part in protests.
The offices of Arora, Sahney and Mittal said they were travelling. Seechewal said the only purpose of his joining the party was “to propagate environmental issues”. “I had conveyed my stance to the party’s senior leadership, including CM Mann, that I would not be involved in any political affairs and events,” he added.
To be sure, Arora, Sahney, Mittal and Pathak met Sunita Kejriwal on Thursday evening and expressed their solidarity.
Questions over other leaders
Kejriwal’s arrest has engulfed the party in a crisis at a time when its alliance with the Congress for the polls was just taking off. The challenge for the party is to get battle ready before May 25, when the seven seats of Delhi go to the polls.
But there has been chatter in political circles about transport minister Kailash Gahlot, who handles five important departments including home and transport. Unlike all Delhi ministers, Gahlot did not arrive at the CM’s residence on March 21 when Kejriwal was arrested but showed up the next morning to meet Sunita Kejriwal. He has since not addressed major rallies or press conferences, though he has spoken in the media against the BJP. “People’s sympathy is with Arvind Kejriwal. People are angry at how Arvind Kejriwal was arrested and jailed. Before the elections, Arvind Kejriwal was arrested and people will respond to this dictatorship through their votes in this Lok Sabha election...” he told ANI on April 7.
Meanwhile, Gopal Rai, the chief of AAP’s Delhi unit, has been on the front line of the party’s attack against the BJP. .
In Punjab, where the party swept to power in 2022 with a landslide mandate, the AAP is facing a different problem.
The common thread running through the speeches of most party leaders, including Mann, is the arrest of Kejriwal and the alleged conspiracy to destabilise the AAP governments in Delhi and Punjab.
“His arrest has gone down badly as people of Punjab detest the high-handedness of the central government. Punjab has a history of backing those who take on Delhi,” said AAP’s state working president Budh Ram, but added that Kejriwal’s absence is being felt on the campaign trail.
The party is also facing a volley of attacks from the Congress and the BJP, especially on its plank of anti-corruption. A key theme of the party’s campaign in 2022 was the promise to eradicate corruption but the liquor policy allegations have cast a long shadow.
The Opposition is now demanding a probe into the Punjab liquor policy of Punjab.
“The AAP started out as a niche party against corruption in high places but the anti-corruption campaign is losing sheen due to all these allegations,” said Ashutosh Kumar, professor of political science at Panjab University, Chandigarh.
In this turmoil, the absence of its front line Rajya Sabha leaders is being keenly felt. “These MPs represent the AAP, but most of them have not been participating in any political activity of the party,” an ex-MLA said. “There must be some accountability.”