Another AGP in the form of the AAP
Mr Kejriwal is famous for fighting with everyone, whether it is the PM, L-G, the Delhi police, judiciary, constitutional bodies like the Election Commission, and if he found no one then his own party people
Indian politics is experiencing a sense of déjà vu of the socialist pattern in the form of the Aam Aadmi Party. One would have thought that socialists and socialism all over the world was fast becoming obsolete. But the metamorphosis of India Against Corruption (IAC) to the AAP, from nonpolitical agitation against corruption and mal-governance to a political party, is turning out to be socialistic. Half-baked Indian socialists have captured the leadership of the AAP and are busy turning it sharply to the Left.
The AAP stood for transparency and hence it racked up whopping support, winning Delhi election with flying colours. But very soon after the victory, the party began to collapse, losing its gems. We have seen the way Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav were thrown out of the party.
Mr Kejriwal is famous for fighting with everyone, whether it is the PM, L-G, the Delhi police, judiciary, constitutional bodies like the Election Commission, and if he found no one then his own party people.
His slogan of corruptionfree government has also been questionable in these years of governance. Four ministers had to resign or been removed due to allegations like corruption. Not to forget, six MLAs have also been suspended from the party.
But this latest chaos in the AAP seem to deepened after the allegations of corruption by former minister Kapil Mishra, when he said he saw Mr Kejriwal taking `2 crores as a bribe from his another colleague, Satyendar Kumar Jain.
With leaders like Kumar Vishwas, Mr Mishra and several other MLAs launching an offensive against Mr Kejriwal, the future of the party that promised the politics of change, is on the verge of collapse.
And that’s why the man whose Lokpal movement in 2011 laid the foundation of anti-corruption crusade, which got a political face in the form of the AAP — Anna Hazare — is also depressed by the way the party is disintegrating.
As the AAP battles a war within, one is reminded of what happened in Assam 30 years ago. The parallels are too striking to ignore. Like the AAP that grew out of Anna’s anti-corruption movement, Asom Gana Parishad was formed after the anti-foreigners’ movement. Mr Kejriwal transformed into a politician after he, as Anna’s strategist, forced the UPA to agree to a Lokpal, or the anti-corruption law. For student leaders Prafulla Mahanta and Bhrigu Phukan, signing of the Assam Accord with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was the turning point. In both the movements, youth played a crucial role: AGP was the result of a student’s movement and the AAP attracted youngsters as the freshest option to cleaner politics.
The two parties are separated by a generation, yet both show a common trajectory. Like the Yogendra Yadav-Prashant Bhushan saga, as soon as the AGP formed the government in Assam in 1985, stories of differences between chief minister Prafulla Mahanta and his home minister, late Bhrigu Phukan, started to surface regularly.
The charges against Mr Mahanta then were similar to what one hear against the AAP’s leadership: he had converted a party that grew out of a mass movement into one that believes in the personality cult. I think we are seeing another AGP in the form of the AAP.