First, it was an unexpected high. Then it was an
unexpected low.
The unexpected high was for everyone, including the direct
beneficiary. In fact, it came as a pleasant surprise for those who wished to
see it happen but had not expected it to happen this way given the
circumstances then.
The unexpected low was expected by everyone, (but) except the
direct beneficiary, who could not read it or did not want to read it then and
had a self-made spectacular fall - from grace, from the position of standing –
that came to him because of the growing public frustration and disenchantment
with the mainstream political lot.
That is the story of the newest political debutant on the
mainstream political scene of India – the Aam Aadmi Party – and of Arvind
Kejriwal – and of those who began their political journey with it - and of those
who joined it later on, especially after the unexpected high of December 2013 –
and those who left it or felt disenchanted enough to walk out of the half-baked
activism and politics concoction – after the ‘expected’ unexpected low of May
2014.
Six months – from December 2013 to May (16) 2014 – sum up
the what AAP has been so far and what it needs to do – to resurrect – or to
decline even further to go to the final political oblivion.
As of now, it has absolute negatives in its score card –
- Running
away from governing
- expanding across the country that it made it so thin leaving it invisible with no network and no connectivity –
- Contesting
the Lok Sabha polls on 432 seats when it’s
- Compromising the ethics and polluting the organizational culture that were promised to be the pillars of the ‘AAP politics with a difference’ -
- Blindly following the personality cult and misusing or wasting names like Medha Patkar, Captain Gopinath and many others –
- And succumbing to the high-handedness of Arvind Kejriwal and his select group -
And so, it was bound to happen.
The case of Arvind Kejriwal and AAP is much like the
Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Peace Nobel to Barack Obama
for the ‘hopes and aspirations’ that he raised with winning the US
The electorate of Delhi awarded the new political outfit
with an unexpected 28 seats in the House of 70 making it the second largest
party while not giving clear majority to any party and thus opening the door to
the possibilities that later on allowed AAP to form the government. Besides
AAP’s door-to-door campaign, the voters had in mind the anti-corruption movement
of 2011 led by Anna Hazare. Arvind Kejriwal was its central strategist. Public
was frustrated with the regime in office and saw the possibility of change in
Arvind Kejriwal led outfit and awarded him hoping he would deliver. The hopes
were legitimate and the aspirations were high.
While we cannot compare the Delhi
While Obama’s post Peace Nobel performance has been debatable,
he has gone on to win the second Presidential terms and remains one of the most
acceptable global leaders.
And Arvind Kejriwal and AAP still look in the state of
inertia. They are still not reading the rule book clearly to work on
organization and its political ethics. They see a chance to win back the Delhi Varanasi
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com
