Their coming together on a platform was indeed a feat and initially the arrangement worked very well, resulting in what looked like a miracle. The Aam Aadmi Party swept Delhi elections as no party had ever done; wiped out both the Congress and the BJP. But assimilation of individuals of diverse backgrounds and ideologies takes time to shape itself into a relatively homogenous political party. In case of the AAP, the time was too short and difference between the leaders of the newly born party came to the fore. They began fighting among themselves and, as a result, the party has been torn apart by internal dissension. It is unfortunate that two founder members, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, were unceremoniously removed from AAP’s Political Affairs Committee, the party’s top decision-making body.

With the return of Kejriwal from Bengaluru after treatment, efforts are being made to douse the flames. One hopes the current problems will be tide over; in the present political situation, a party like AAP, is needed. People have reposed faith in them and the party has mass base. The proposal to expand in other states, an issue that led to difference between Yadav and the leadership. Later, the PAC itself decided to expand the party in other states.

Now let us look back to gruesome days before AAP captured power in Delhi. The first split took place when an ambitious Kejriwal and his Man Friday, Manish Sesodia, began to tire of Anna-style fast politics and sought more direct role in electoral politics. Even when AAP formed a government in December, 2013, the glue was a strident anti-corruption plank but little else. What, for example, did a firm believer in old style Lohia socialism like Yadav had common with the economic world- view of a south Mumbai banker like Meera Sanyal?

Anti-corruption politics can be calling card as an oppositional force bidding for power. Former Prime Minister V P Singh, for example, used it most effectively in late 1980s to put the Rajiv Gandhi government on the mat. Kejriwal too was astute in taking on the UPA by flagging the many scams in its tenure. Popular anger can be channelised by anti-politician sloganeering; ‘Sab neta chor hain’ became a signature tune for APP in early rise to power. But once in office, the idiom and practices need to change: Pressure of democratic politics can force compromises where the means matter less than the ends.

As a full-time politician, Kejriwal was willing to adjust: Defeat in Lok Sabha elections had forced him to climb down from his moral perch and look to strike “deals” with an eye of “winnability”. As ideologically driven individuals, neither Yadav nor Bhushan seemed comfortable with making those “adjustments”. They seemed to be seeking a moral purity, which was never going to succeed in the cut and thrust of electoral politics.

AAP may claim to be a party with a difference, but the truth is, for all its well-intentioned claims, it has to survive in a political culture, which demands a compromise with lofty idealism and certain ruthlessness in the intent of its political leadership. Kejriwal may have a missionary zeal to be an agent of change, but like all missionary-like figures, he has chosen to nurture a personality cult with his resultant coteries. In its first coming, AAP was held together by a commitment to take on corruption, in its second avatar, it is Kejriwal’s domineering persona that now is a cementing factor.

The 2015 Delhi win was driven by Kejriwal’s energetic and charismatic leadership, blessed with the kind of mass connect that neither a Yadav nor a Bhushan can ever hope to match. AAP cleverly and deliberately converted the Delhi election into a presidential style leadership contest much like the BJP did in the 2014 general elections. Just as the BJP cannot now complain about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s larger-than-life image, neither really can APP look beyond a Kejriwal-driven high command. Almost every political party in India today, without exception, is tightly run by a family or an individual. To have expected AAP to be a different was just an illusion. (IPA Service)