Today once again confirmed
that the Aam Aadmi Party will never learn its lessons and if its fall from
grace continues at the same rate, it is going to be doomed soon.
The party has, literally,
become a laughing stock. Instead of inspecting (and introspecting) on why it is
losing polls (and losing humiliatingly), the party is busy in playing a game of
political mudslinging.
And when it happened in
Delhi, where it had registered two unexpected and stupendous victories in two
years but lost its constituency by its second year in the office, when it saw a
humiliating loss in the Delhi local polls last months, the message was clear
and bold.
Shape in our shape out.
Perform or perish. You have been given more than enough benefit of doubt. Now
there is no time left.
But the drama that the whole
party enacted in the Delhi assembly today, on once again blaming the EVMs for
their electoral failures and therefore blaming the BJP led central government
and the Election Commission of India, once again reinforced the feeling that
the party is going to bust in the days ahead.
Because, it has its origins
in people's expectations, in hopes of the crushed classes and masses and in
silent but desperate cries of the millions of commoners who are blamed to live
a cursed life in a society that is still learning how to treats its basic unit
- those commoners only.
When the AAP formed a
political outfit some five years ago, it was then a logical extension of the
anti-corruption movement that had given this bunch of people credibility.
When it first faltered in February
2014, leaving Delhi, that had shown its trust on the party by giving it a
stunning debut, to score bigger victories the 2014 parliamentary polls, it was
still seen as an experimental streak of activists who were doing some soul
searching on the political turf to get accustomed to its bylanes.
When the party registered
even bigger a victory, that was almost absolute, in February 2015, in Delhi, it
showed Delhi still saw its diversions as experimental aberrations.
But the fall from grace had
started much earlier. The second term of the AAP has only removed those doubts
that gave the AAP benefit of doubt.
In just five years, the AAP
has become anti-thesis to everything it promised to stand for.
The first, and in fact, the
only question, the question of life and death, that was and that is for the
AAP, is whether it could walk the extremely fragile ground of expectations -
where it had to fight against its internal and external elements who erred even
slightly - because such journeys begin from home only.
And five years down the line,
it is now an unquestioned fact that the AAP began with right credentials but with
wrong intentions.
Had it not been so, it would
not have converted so soon into a one-man party.
Had it not been so, it would
not have thought of moving out of Delhi so soon, when it had no party base and
structure in other states, before it could prove itself in Delhi, a must to say
thanks to Delhi for reposing its faith in the party, in spite of its act of
betrayal.
Had it not been so, it would
not have tolerated even a single case of political impropriety and corruption,
something that the party is plagued with now.
Had it not been so, it would
never have accepted deserters and controversial persons from other parties, like
it did in hordes.
Had it not been so, Kejriwal himself
would have resigned or offered to resigns than seeing the likes Kiran Bedi,
Shazia Ilmi, Prashant Bhushan, Mayank Gandhi, Captain Gopinath and many more
leaving the party.
Had it not been so, it would
not have become elitist and so VIP that it never cares for the people in real need
even if you make desperate cries for help.
Had it not been so, Arvind
Kejriwal would have resigned much earlier taking responsibility over the
allegations of political impropriety, elitism, nepotism and corruption in the
party, and it, in fact, would have raised his credibility.
The party never sounded like
it is reshaping and reinventing itself. It never looks life performing. It
looks like a bunch of people who are always ready to engage in vocal fights,
even on the slightest pretext and with utter disregard for the norms of
civilized debates.
To sum up, they have become
totally what they came to change. They have become so routine now that they
look like just another political party. And when they are just another
political party with no base and significant membership even in its birthplace,
why would people care for it, why would people elect them?
This is the question that
should haunt them. This is the question that should give them humility now. This
is the question that should be at the core of their introspection. The scores
of political and electoral losses should guide them. But today's drama in the
Delhi assembly tells us that they have become so self-obsessed that they are
not seeing their imminent fate ahead.
©SantoshChaubey