The Delhi 2015 assembly election has been one of the most acidic elections in the Indian political history. Now that it has come to an epic conclusion, with AAP forming the Government and reducing the BJP and Cong to dust, it’s time to take a closer look at what this eye-balls-grabbing-affair has taught us about the young AAP.
It has, no doubt, been one of the most followed elections in the recent history. The campaigning and the air thick with allegations flying across from all sides did manage to make it an entertaining encounter between the major political players in Delhi. But apart from that, the veneer that AAP was always covered with has begun to wear off. The election has shown us that AAP, despite all its claims of being a party with difference, is in many ways similar to the BJP and Congress.
During many interviews before the 2014 assembly elections, Arvind Kejriwal had professed that his party believed in battle of Ideologies rather than Personalities. But having being pitched against his former friend/associate Kiran Bedi, the AAP did play a role in transforming this election to exactly that. With ‘ईमान्दार (Honest) Kejriwal VS अवसरवादी (Opportunistic) Bedi’ posters, the AAP played along with BJP in managing to convince the people that the Personality mattered much more than anything else. Adding to that, the campaign line “Modi for PM, Arvind for CM”, which was later rather embarrassingly pulled down, also showed how desperate AAP was in using even Modi’s personality to score a few brownie points.
A recent evaluation of all the candidates who were in the fray, also threw light on some interesting aspects. About 23 of the AAP candidates have criminal charges pending against them (11 being charged with serious crimes), while BJP and Congress have 29 and 21 respectively. Also, the average assets owned by AAP candidate’s amounts to approximately 6 crores (Congress – 9.60 & BJP – 7.96). So the Aam Admi Party is neither Aam nor is it clean. This outfit just happens to be a long lost cousin of the all the major political parties, covering itself with a veil of self-attested righteousness.
AAP also based its campaign on being the only transparent party in the contest, but the elections proved otherwise. When one of their candidates (Naresh Balyan) was accused, by the Delhi Police, of smuggling liquor in to Delhi, instead of handling the accusation responsibly the AAP including Arvind Kejriwal, came out and accused the Delhi Police of being under pressure. The AAP has also claimed that the EVM’s were tampered to favor the BJP. The Election commission had to clear the air that there was no such issue, and warn against the rumors that were being spread so irresponsibly.
Now Dear AAP, is there a constant paranoia against institutions of this country? Or is it just plain distrust? If any of those two cases are true, isn’t is possible that you are also influencing mind-sets, who faithfully follow you, and sending out a message that these, or for that matter any institution should not be trusted especially in cases where there are allegations from or against you? Aren’t you effectively ensuring that you are immune to judgement whenever there are any allegations in the future, and hence deflecting from any responsibility of being transparent and coming clean? Being clean and transparent was what you promised since and before the formation of your party. Or were those just the ideals that you used while campaigning, to make yourself look good?
The AAP, no doubt, has set high standards for itself, which in itself is a commendable thing to do. But are they finding it difficult to match up to these standards? The AAP needs to remember that it never hesitated to bank on the claims of being a party with difference. That is essentially what earned them the thumping victory in Delhi. Now that they are in power and have become a major political party, they do need to stay focussed on their principles & promises. The U-turns on pre-poll promises such as free Wi-Fi & number of CCTV cameras, and banning cameras in assembly (especially because they armed their volunteers with spy cameras during the pools) and preventing public access to secretariat are just not helping. It is probably too early to judge them on governance, since they just formed the government, or maybe it is not.
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