AAP must go back to its roots
taking on traditional elites was now seen as self-righteous conceit and the same media which had once glorified him was now looking to pull him down.
The scale of AAP’s 2015 victory along with the failure of the Opposition to throw up a strong alternative to Modi, convinced Kejriwal that he could fill the national leadership vacuum. In the process, he made the mistake of many an ambitious start-up: Attempting to expand without consolidating. The move into Punjab and Goa sent out the message that AAP was taking Delhi for granted. By contrast, the BJP sensed the voter mood astutely.
Corruption has been endemic to civic bodies with many councillors becoming crorepatis overnight: For 10 years, the BJP was seen to have presided over an ineffectual and corrupt local body. But by denying tickets to all its sitting councillors and revolving the campaign around Brand Modi, the BJP changed the narrative. The promise of a ‘new BJP’ was seductive to urban voters still mesmerised by the Modi charisma. The same middle class that cheered Kejriwal when he exposed the Congress appeared reluctant to endorse him when he challenged Modi, a leader who has cleverly appropriated the pro-poor, anti-corruption plank post-demonetisation.
Ironically, it is the BJP’s obsessive Modicentric approach that provides parties like AAP an opportunity for course correction.
The opportunity lies in raising citizen’s issues even where the electoral benefit may not be immediately apparent but where a sense of people connect is restored. The next time there is a dengue or chikungunya outbreak, AAP must offer an imaginative alternative solution rather than cruelly blame ‘divine intervention’ and the BJP for the mosquito menace. Why not spearhead a volunteer-driven mass awareness campaign on the state of public health and sanitation in Delhi? To rediscover itself, AAP must go back to its original identity built during the anti-corruption Anna agitation: A public spirited movement that becomes the voice of those who feel desperately powerless in the India of today.