About two months ago it was all about the ‘mango’ party. But then, perhaps because of the unseasonal rains, worms emerged from the beautiful mangoes. That was the situation of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi.
After its historic and stupendous victory, just as the party got down to the serious job of governance, internal bickering hit the headlines and the party’s founder members – Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan – raised the banner of revolt, questioning the way Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his team ran the party.
A lot of dirty laundry was washed in public and ultimately Yadav and Bhushan were shown the door along with some others, who are probably well-meaning but identified ideologically or viewed sympathetically the spoken and stated views of these two.
This has raised questions about whether regional parties – if AAP can indeed be called a regional party – or such fronts can actually survive in the country. The JP movement of the 1970s saw the birth of regional powerhouses and the nationalist movement also spawned the birth of the Congress.
History shows that parties spawned by mass movements have survived, with many thriving. Examples are the Janata Parivar parties and the Congress. However, they – besides the Congress in its heydays – have mostly been now consigned to narrow areas.
Besides these there have been regional parties that have emerged with many politicians and interests using them as vehicles to further their interests. Many of these have failed.
“In some cases smaller parties could be an option in case people want to punish the national parties. If they are seasoned regional parties then they offer an option to the people,” says Soter de Souza, a columnist, former journalist, former politician and someone who has been watching politics from the grassroots level for a long time. “Fly by night parties are mischievous ones,” he says.
In the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections, AAP made waves, almost becoming the single largest party. It formed the government and even ran the government for 49 days with the support of the Congress. This, crutch of the Congress, was questioned by many AAP supporters. And then Congress, an unreliable coalition partner at the best of times, began unsettling the fledgling party almost as soon as the echoes of the oath-taking ceremony died down.
On the ground, sticking to its dharna type of strategy, the party leadership rushed headlong into getting an all India movement going, allowing all and sundry to join, raising hope but not really thinking about the realpolitik of elections. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, they received a drubbing with a majority of the candidates, including AAP icon Kejriwal, losing miserably.
However, the top leadership, led by Kejriwal, apologized for the mistake, made some course corrections and took to the campaign trail again. A certain amount of realpolitik entered the sustained campaign and AAP won the 2015 Delhi assembly elections by a record margin decimating the Congress and the BJP. The BJP pulled out all stops, getting the prime minister on the campaign trail, and pitch forking known Kejriwal baiter and his former dharna colleague Kiran Bedi into the fray.
“AAP is the only hope for the common man in the murky Indian politics,” says the party’s Goa convenor Rajeshree Nagarshekar.
According to her, AAP has its support base in the urban educated and middle class and accordingly it will do well to focus in a State like Goa. “AAP ushered in a new dynamism to politics by linking itself to the aspirations of the common man. Moreover there is a political vacuum which AAP is working to occupy,” she says.
Last time AAP flattered to deceive in Goa. Now the party has almost two years for the next assembly elections. In this time people in the State will be watching both the Delhi government and the State unit to see whether the party is really an alternative in the State.
