Can the Aam Aadmi Party survive?

This tiny party faces the harshest attacks from central agencies. Why does the BJP unleash so much wrath against the AAP?

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal being taken to the Rouse Avenue Court after he was sent to the CBI’s custody for three days in connection to the Delhi Excise policy scam case in New Delhi on June 27. | Photo Credit: ANI

There is some hope among lawyers and members of the AAP that their party’s national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal may get bail in the foreseeable future in the cases activated by different agencies, as could his right hand, the former Deputy Chief Minister of the city State, Manish Sisodia. This is based on the expectation that the judiciary might show greater independence after the pincer of single party autocracy was loosened by the June 4 mandate.

There are many ifs and buts in this scenario, as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have made every move to ensure that the AAP leaders stay incarcerated. Despite getting bail from the Supreme Court in July in a money laundering case linked to Delhi’s excise policy, Kejriwal was not released; he was separately arrested by the CBI for corruption in broadly the same case. This is usually how the police treat those accused of terrorism.

The criminalisation of the opposition using the ED and state agencies has been a feature of the Narendra Modi years. But the AAP has faced the most furious onslaught by the government via agencies, the criminal justice system, and loyal media arms. As a small party that is in power only in Delhi and Punjab, one asks why so much wrath has been directed against it by the mighty BJP?

It is possibly because the AAP appeared on the very stage—New Delhi—where Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to perform as an Absolute Leader and Vishwaguru. Kejriwal’s national rise mirrored Modi’s, who shifted to Delhi in 2014 while Kejriwal led the AAP to a historic sweep of 67 of 70 seats in the Assembly six months later. In the 12 years since its formation, the AAP has been the fastest growing political party, and in 2022 it came to power in Punjab. The two years since then have been hell for the party.

Besides, the AAP’s “ideology”, if one can call it as such, is really about building the public sector and delivering services in health and education. In 2022-23, for instance, the Delhi government’s Budget allocated 21 per cent for education, claiming it was the highest among all States and the Centre.

Every now and then, the AAP flirts with Hindutva, but it is unlikely to trouble either the BJP or other parties. However, it is the party’s governance approach that can be seen as being at odds with the orientation of the Modi government, whose credo is outsourcing and privatisation. This approach of the AAP has created a furious rage in the “establishment”, which consists not just of the BJP but also old Congress hands, bureaucrats, and some private businesses. So, for the past few years, Delhi has been the site for the wrecking ball that seeks to disable the AAP’s schemes, cut its budgets, delay funds, and focus on finding a smoking gun in the Delhi liquor policy by building a case through approvers.

Despite the fact that it is the city, indeed India’s capital, that is becoming collateral damage, the Modi regime takes the job of destroying the AAP so seriously that it brought in a law through Parliament to overturn a Supreme Court judgment. On May 11, 2023, a five-judge Constitution Bench ruled that the elected Delhi government had power over administrative services, which means bureaucrats. Eight days later, the Centre brought in an ordinance that overturned the court’s decision, and in August last year, the Lok Sabha passed the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023 (or Delhi Services Bill), that extends the Centre’s powers in the National Capital Region and gives the Lieutenant Governor (LG) authority over civil servants. This, in effect, means that the bureaucrats need not listen to elected Ministers.

Highlights

• The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faces an existential crisis as its top leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, remain behind bars in a series of legal cases.
• The BJP-led Centre has systematically curtailed AAP’s powers in Delhi, passing laws to overturn court rulings and giving more authority to the Lieutenant Governor.
• As Delhi’s 2025 Assembly elections loom, AAP’s future hangs in the balance, with its governance model under siege and the BJP eyeing a takeover of the capital.

Still, the AAP has to contend with bureaucrats who do not listen to it and the public has to live in a city where a simple document often cannot be extracted from a bureaucracy that is not accountable to the public and only answers to the unelected LG. From the mohalla clinics being short of funds to government school teachers being transferred, there is a Kafkaesque shroud over the functioning of the State government in Delhi. And, opening a new chapter in jurisprudence, the ED for the first time has made a political party, the AAP, an accused in the liquor policy case.

There are so many cases and inquiries targeting members of the Delhi government that it is hard to keep track. There is even a case against the Delhi government for paying legal fees in some cases. The AAP ended the BJP’s 15-year reign over the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in 2022. There is a complex legislation now involving the creation of the MCD’s Standing Committee that is authorised to clear projects over Rs.5 crore. Many things are thus stuck in Delhi, including the city’s drains in the monsoon.

The Centre’s vanity projects, however, have never been halted, whether it is the Central Vista or billboards with the Prime Minister’s face advertising the G20 summit last year. Even the LG’s face is now displayed at historical and archaeological parks.

So, what next? Since the Modi-Kejriwal standoff began, the city has voted for the BJP in every Lok Sabha election but given large mandates to the AAP in the Assembly election (in 2020 the party won 62 seats of 70). The BJP won the 2024 Lok Sabha election in spite of an AAP-Congress alliance. The next Assembly election is due in 2025. Had the BJP won a simple majority this year, it may have brought in more structural changes to the already curtailed powers of the Delhi Assembly. But it cannot do so now given its parliamentary strength. Thus, as New Delhi heads into the Assembly election, the BJP will want Kejriwal behind bars, the AAP dysfunctional, and the party tainted by corruption allegations.

However, the Delhi BJP itself has been beset with a leadership crisis for some decades. Now, there is speculation that it may consider the newly elected MP Bansuri Swaraj (daughter of Sushma Swaraj) as the party’s Chief Minister candidate although the name of the veteran Delhi politician Arvinder Singh Lovely, who defected from the Congress just before the Lok Sabha election, has also been floated.

For the AAP, behind bars or not, Kejriwal is its creator and undisputed leader. The question now is, can the AAP do a hat trick? Has there been reputational damage by the constant painting of the AAP leadership as corrupt? The morale of party workers is low, with a wrecking ball having been taken to every facet of the party’s existence. Besides the incarceration of party leaders, other functionaries and loyalists have also been criminalised and/or lost their jobs in the Delhi government.

Meanwhile, there has been a national revival of sorts of the Congress, which governed Delhi for three terms under the late Chief Minister Sheila Dixit before the Kejriwal era. There will be no AAP-Congress alliance for the State election, and the latter will be seeking to stage a comeback.

The AAP is battered but it is a fighting force, particularly if Kejriwal is freed. His party has flagged his medical condition. Kejriwal is diabetic and has lost weight, although there is a political slanging match over how much. While Tihar jail authorities say he has lost 2 kg since June 2, when he returned to jail after a brief bail period, AAP functionaries say their leader has lost 8.5 kg and suggest that the authorities are painting a false picture. They say Kejriwal could end up in a coma and should be shifted to a hospital. Politicians, businessmen, and even powerful dons accused of serious crimes are frequently allowed to invoke health reasons and sent to hospital. But Kejriwal, of course, is a special target. 

Saba Naqvi is a Delhi-based journalist and author of four books who writes on politics and identity issues.