The AAP may like to shrug it off saying these leaders have no grassroots connections and cannot even win a panchayat election in Punjab or in Delhi, but the fact remains that they were helpful in popularising the party, which comprised just another group of activists when it took off in the first half of the last decade
It may not have all the features of an edition of Operation Lotus but the switching over of seven of the 10 Rajya Sabha members of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to the BJP points to the one reality of Indian politics about the saffron party strengthening itself at the cost of if its opponents 24 by seven over 365 days. Politicking never ends at the party headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Road in the national capital.
The AAP, the saffron party’s bête noire in the national capital, is perhaps navigating its most challenging period ever as it has seen the departure of some of the high-profile leaders and media-savvy faces, who were made members of the Upper House from Punjab. The AAP may like to shrug it off saying these leaders have no grassroots connections and cannot even win a panchayat election in Punjab or in Delhi, but the fact remains that they were helpful in popularising the party, which comprised just another group of activists when it took off in the first half of the last decade.
Much has changed since then as the AAP came to power in the Union territory of Delhi three times and also took the reins of a bigger and strategically important border state of Punjab. It was not through long years of political work at the grassroots or through an earthshattering agitation that the party came to power in both these states but thanks to the communication skills of its leaders who were otherwise novices in the shaky fields of realpolitik which played a key part. The party has managed to keep floating on the strength of character of its leaders, the defected ones included, and hence it remains to be seen if the AAP can still shrug off the debilitating effects of the defection of its vocal leaders.
The reasons the defectors have offered for the switch are laughable: they say the party has deviated from its core principles and no longer provides a space for honest workers. This despite the fact that people who have been made members of the Upper House of Parliament with very little political experience regretting the lost opportunity of honest workers rings nothing but false to one’s ears. The MPs have also failed to give specific instances of how the AAP moved away from its core principles.
The BJP has no immediate benefits either in Delhi where it is firmly in saddle or in Punjab where the party is no main player but it would love to portray the picture of its biggest enemy in the national capital disintegrating. It can also send the signal that no one is safe from its poaching; big or small, ally or opponent. The party is a long-term player with a core Hindutva ideology and it is confident of wooing all into its fold. If it can set a slogan “Congress-mukt Bharat”, then it can justifiably target smaller players.
The AAP government in Punjab may not face an immediate threat but the development has put it on alert. If it wants to remain politically relevant in the border state, where the politics used to be mostly defined by the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Congress, then it will have rewire its strategy. It will also have to strengthen itself ideologically if it sees itself as an opponent of the BJP. Either way, the AAP will have to work on its fundamentals if it wants to remain a viable political alternative in the country.
