AAP’s problems: Kejriwal set out to change Delhi
By Prabha 14 Dec, 2024
‘My heart trembles, thinking that when 40% of Delhi’s population lives in slums, then how can a CM live in such a luxurious house.’ Regarding the 10 ACs installed in Sheila Dikshit’s official residence, Arvind Kejriwal had said that who pays the bill for all these? You and I pay it.
The reality of 6 Staff Road bungalow is now in front of everyone. Chief Minister Kejriwal, who came to power by calling himself a common man and saying that he would never buy a bungalow or a car, as soon as the list of things installed in the official residence of Chief Minister Kejriwal became public, everyone is surprised to know its grandeur. Kejriwal lived in this bungalow for 9 years. This bungalow had to be vacated after resigning from the post of Chief Minister.
After the Anna Hazare movement, the dream of a new kind of politics was shown to the entire country by announcing the formation of a new political party on 2 October 2012. The idea of a party free from nepotism, corruption and communalism attracted most of the people with liberal ideology and got full support. Kejriwal gradually completely shaped the Aam Aadmi Party around his ambitions by molding it with the message and goal of establishing a progressive participatory and easy welfare administrative system based politics as an alternative to the rigid, corrupt, undemocratic monopolistic politics.
The trust of the people gave the party 29.48% votes and 28 out of 70 seats in the first Delhi Assembly elections in 2013 and Aam Aadmi Party emerged as the second largest party. BJP won 31 seats by getting 33% votes while Congress also got 24.6% votes and was reduced to 8 seats. Bahujan Samaj Party could get only 5.35% votes. Kejriwal became the Chief Minister with the outside support of Congress.
While BJP had success in the outer areas of Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party made its inroads in the area of Central Delhi. 66% voting took place. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Kejriwal contested on all seven seats of Delhi and got 32.9% votes but did not get any success. Arvind Kejriwal was badly defeated in the contest against Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
In the 2015 elections held after one year of the President’s rule, 15% of Congress’s votes went to the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress was left with only 9.7% votes. The people of Delhi gave 67 seats to the party with a huge support of 54.3%. BJP got only 3 seats but its vote share was 32.3%.
In the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party got 53.57% votes but this time its seats got reduced. The party won 62 seats but due to an increase of about 6.2% (38.51%) in BJP’s vote, the graph of seats increased to 8. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the vote of Aam Aadmi Party decreased from 32.9% to 24.17% as compared to 2019. This time in the Delhi Assembly elections, many leaders of Aam Aadmi Party are worried about how much difference will the lack of popularity among the public due to many issues make in the vote percentage.
Even after a decade, the party has not been completely restructured, and the entire dominance remains centered on one person. To fulfill political ambitions, the identity of Hindutva has been continuously maintained parallel to nationalism. Efforts to add chapters on patriotism in Delhi’s school curriculum and to declare oneself a Hanuman devotee are part of this series. Different communities were definitely brought together for political purposes, but priority was not given to fighting a serious struggle to clearly establish the constitutional principle of secularism.
Today, Aam Aadmi Party is facing serious challenges. The party is facing challenges of the same values that were the basis of the formation of the party at one time. Political ambition has overtaken commitment towards people and many promises have remained unfulfilled. They promised to make Yamuna a clean river, but could never do so. Yamuna river is now more polluted than before. The Kejriwal government has not yet been able to find a permanent solution to the pain that the people of Delhi have to bear every year due to pollution.
The basic services that were loudly publicized have not yet been able to be provided. Due to the conflict and confrontation with the Lieutenant Governor, there is difficulty in providing even basic services to the people of Delhi. Instead of fighting for the rights of the people, they are fighting only for their political agenda.
After the exposure of the grandeur of Kejriwal’s new bungalow and many controversies like Swati Maliwal’s incident in the bungalow, the use of Punjab government’s helicopter for campaigning in other states in the Lok Sabha elections, people are doubting whether Kejriwal is still a common man or not. It is clear that if the Delhi government spends most of its time fighting with the Centre, then nothing can happen to Delhi. The condition of the Aam Aadmi Party, which came to power in the Punjab elections by asking for a chance to change the picture of the state, is being considered weak due to its inability to fulfill the promises made.
Delhi is seeing the changing priorities of Kejriwal, who started his political journey with the commitment to serve the common people of Delhi and vowed to continue doing so. Kejriwal is trying to strengthen his bet in the elections on the strategy of using sympathy for being harassed by the BJP government.
To attain enlightenment in politics, one has to burn in the harsh sunshine of sacrifice and not in the soft moonlight of the glass palace of ambition.
