Ecostani | History not on beleaguered Arvind Kejriwal’s side for political revival
The first party to challenge Congress’ political hegemony was Swatantra founded by C Rajagopalachari in 1959.
The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) loss to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Delhi assembly election has raised the question of whether former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will be able to overcome his first major political debacle amid central investigation agencies likely to probe his alleged involvement in different cases.
The BJP won the Delhi polls with 48 of the 70 assembly seats in Delhi and AAP could get only win 22 seats. Congress drew blank for the third time in a row.
It also has a majority in the Delhi Municipal Corporation (MCD) with three AAP councillors switching over to the BJP. With this latest switchover, the BJP’s tally in MCD has increased to 116 from 104 seats won in 2023 and the AAP is down to 114 compared to 134 earlier.
Now, the BJP has full control over Delhi — local government, municipal bodies and land and law and order through the Central government, as defined under the National Capital Territory Act, 1991. One party with absolute control over three separate administrative wings in Delhi is rare: it had happened briefly between 2004 and 2008 when Sheila Dikshit was helming the Delhi government. The BJP now claims that Delhi will have a “triple engine” governance model and it will use all its powers to decimate the AAP politically in Delhi.
Soon after the Delhi election results, the Central Bureau of Investigation launched a probe into the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) low-floor bus scam; the Central Vigilance Commission said it is looking into the alleged irregularities in Kejriwal’s official home on Flag Staff Road and other agencies into irregularities in the Delhi Jal Board.
“Probe only in one case (excise) is being done against Kejriwal. Seven more are to happen,” home minister and BJP leader Amit Shah had said during the election campaign, indicating that the AAP chief is likely to be besieged with a series of corruption cases in the coming days.
Dealing with these cases and retaining the party’s cadre and structure amid BJP’s political onslaught will not be easy. It remains to be seen whether other opposition parties, which are part of the INDIA bloc helmed by the Congress will back Kejriwal. In all likelihood, the Congress will not, as it sees its chances of revival with AAP’s loss in Delhi. In Punjab, where AAP is in power, the Congress is the main opposition party. Also, the Congress leadership believes that AAP eats into its votes than that of the BJP.
However, how West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party leader, Akhilesh Yadav, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejaswhi Yadav and MK Stalin, Tamil Nadu chief minister, back Kejriwal is yet to be seen. Aditya Thackeray of Shiv Sena (UBT) is the only prominent leader to meet Kejriwal after the electoral debacle. More than the backing of the political parties, Kejriwal will need the support of the people to revive his political fortune.
Before Kejriwal started his India Against Corruption (IAC) in 2012, primarily aimed at targeting the Congress, there were examples of political parties emerging from people-centric political movements in post-independent India.
The first party to challenge Congress’ political hegemony was Swatantra founded by C Rajagopalachari in 1959, opposing Jawaharlal Nehru’s so-called Stalinist policy outlook of centralised planning even though the RSS-backed Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the earlier avatar of BJP, also existed.
The party wound up in 1974, the year that witnessed another uprising led by socialist leader J P Narayan, which led to the formation of the Janata Party a few years later. In 1977, the Janata Party trounced the Congress to come to power at the Centre but lost the majority in less than three years.
Two major splinter parties emerged from the Janata Party, the BJP and Janata Dal, in 1980. The Janata Dal came to power in 1989 for two years and in subsequent years splintered into different parties such as Samajwadi Party, RJD, Janata Dal (United), Janata Dal (Secular), Indian National Lok Dal and so on.
In states, parties emerged after violent political movements. The All-Assam Students Union (AASU) led a violent protest demanding that non-native Assamese people should not be allowed in the state following the large-scale migration of people into the state from Eastern Pakistan, especially after 1971 when Bangladesh was formed.
After the Centre signed the Assam Accord with AASU in 1985, its leader Prafulla Kumar Mohanta formed a political party Assom Gana Parishad and it won subsequent assembly elections defeating the Congress. Forty years down the line, the AGP is a minor alliance partner in the BJP-led Assam government, and its influence is limited.
In Uttarakhand, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal was behind the protests, demanding a separate state from Uttar Pradesh in the 1990s. However, after the state was created in 2000, the UKD’s political influence rapidly withered.
In Telangana, the K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR)-led Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi, which emerged from the movement to create the Telangana state, is looking for a political revival after a heavy loss in the 2023 assembly elections; KCR was in power for 10 years between 2014 and 2023.
The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, which was formed during an agitation led by Shibu Soren, to create the state, has survived many political upheavals, primarily due to the strong backing of the tribal votes. Similarly, RJD, Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal (Secular) have survived due to the backing of the caste groups they aim to represent.
Kejriwal, however, does not represent or have a caste or a community group-specific vote bank. He has showcased himself as a leader of the poor and the downtrodden, a vote base that is known to shift from one party to another.
Before Kejriwal, it was the vote bank of the Congress in Delhi. The Congress ensured that it carried out developmental works in poor colonies but at the same time did not ignore the aspirations of the middle class through infrastructure development. Kejriwal appeared to have forgotten the middle class in the past five years and getting them back will not be easy.
Unlike other political parties, Kejriwal has not espoused strong ideological moorings, which can create a stable vote bank for him. He still has a strong 42% vote share in Delhi and 90% of it, I estimate, is of the poor and downtrodden.
The question is whether he would be able to retain it for another five years. People tend to not politically forgive those, who have played with their trust. If the Congress is able to get back the votes of the poor in Delhi, which the BJP will like, survival for Kejriwal will not be easy but he is not known to give up without a fight.