Can Aam Aadmi Party Stay United? No Way.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was founded on the vices of greed and one-upmanship where everybody is ready to pull everybody else down deceptively.
By Rakesh Raman
The fledgling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is a classic case of political dirt in the already dirty Indian politics. Within just two weeks of its victory in the Delhi election, the infighting between its top brass has stooped to the level of an ugly dogfight. Now there are more conflicting voices in the party than the number of mouths that spew them out.
While AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal, who grabbed the Delhi Chief Minister position, is at the center of controversy, other top leaders such as Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav are behaving like thirsty vampires who are ready to suck Kejriwal’s blood because the latter ignored them. They had raised their voice against Kejriwal’s dictatorial style of working.
Both Bhushan and Yadav were punished today, as AAP removed them from the political decision-making wing of the party, called Political Affairs Committee. With this decision, the dissidents are relegated to mere figurehead roles while Kejriwal himself will call the shots in the party.
[ Also Read: 10 Reasons I Like Sir Arvind Kejriwal ]
Now AAP supporters – who are basically idle junkies – are worried without reason. They want the party to stay united. Social media is replete with their posts that hardly make sense. And a few Non-Resident Indian (NRI) chapters of AAP have launched a social media campaign under the hashtag #UnitedAAP. It urges the AAP leadership to stay united.
But you can’t take NRIs seriously because they are actually refugees who are neither loyal to India nor to their countries of residence that have given them a kind of asylum. They simply show their ostentatious love for India mostly by donating money to begging politicians. Let’s not waste time on this NRI thing and come back to the main topic.
[ No Democracy in India. It Is Parliamentary Dictatorship. ]
So, can AAP stay united? No, it can’t. But why? Because AAP was founded on the vices of greed and one-upmanship where everybody is ready to pull everybody else down deceptively.
Unlike other traditional parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or Congress which are vertically structured parties, AAP is structured horizontally.
What does this actually mean? The BJP and Congress leaders at the helm have attained the positions after their decades of association with their parties. Others with lesser experience or achievements have accepted them as their leaders.
However, all the top leaders of AAP entered together in politics just a couple years ago and have no political experience. Then how one man – Kejriwal – can become the ringleader? This is the basic bone of contention.
[ How Indian Rulers Abuse Human Rights in the Digital Space ]
In fact, AAP is a party of short-cutters – people who want political benefits without doing anything useful for public. As all AAP members have negligible experience in politics, they joined this dirty game to avail undue benefits. As they can’t hope to leapfrog in a traditional political party, they chose the fledgling party AAP.
Kejriwal himself is also a product of political deception. While he could exploit social activist Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign to gain undue popularity and quickly rise in politics, his other party members did not get similar opportunity. They wanted to exploit Kejriwal’s ill-gotten popularity to make their own political careers.
Perhaps Kejriwal understands their avaricious intentions because they belong to his own breed. That’s why Kejriwal is ignoring them and wants to run AAP as an absolute dictator.
[ Also Read: Surprisingly, Aam Aadmi Party Prefers Clean Politics ]
While the rebels like Bhushan and Yadav in AAP want to spread their wings in other Indian states so that they could also hope to become Chief Ministers like Kejriwal, the latter is determined to clip their wings because he would never like to live with a divided popularity.
AAP is, in fact, a gang of greedy pigs. While the rebels are openly talking about their ambitions in public, Kejriwal is doing everything cunningly like a head-in-the-sand ostrich. As Kejriwal is eying a national role, he has not taken any responsibility in the Delhi government. He is the Chief Minister without any department.
To fulfill his greed-driven ambitions, he has once again joined hands with Anna Hazare to leverage the social activist’s clout among the people. Both Hazare and Kejriwal were together in a recent Delhi agitation, which was against the BJP government’s ordinance on Land Acquisition Bill.
After winning the Delhi election and now on his flight toward the national politics, Kejriwal only needs support from people like Hazare who are not competing with him in politics. He doesn’t want opponents like Bhushan and Yadav.
Cunning Kejriwal used to openly accept the criticism of both Bhushan and Yadav as elder brothers’ advice. But that was before the Delhi election. Now the same criticism has become rebels’ dissent that Kejriwal has decided to quell with all his might.
As Kejriwal is possessed by unsatiated greed, he will certainly expand AAP in other states as well as nationally. But now he would build a team where he will be the master and others around him will all be slaves. And this will be the new definition of a united AAP for Kejriwal. For the time being, as more rebellion is imminent, AAP will stay divided. That’s for sure.
By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of RMN Company
You also can read: More Articles by the RMN Editor, Rakesh Raman
Photo courtesy: AAP
