By Shubham Ghosh
If June 4, 2024, gave India’s Opposition a glimmer of hope after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi saw a reduced majority in the general election, February 8, 2025, marked a perfect anti-climax.
The INDI (Indian National Developmental Inclusive) Alliance, which was formed ahead of the last general polls to defeat the BJP, looked in tatters as two of its major parties, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Indian National Congress lost the assembly battle of Delhi. What was worse for the INDIA Alliance is that the tussle between AAP and Congress allowed the BJP to run away with the prize.
While the Congress was never a force in the reckoning in the February 5 election and failed to open its account for the third consecutive time (its vote share increased though), it ate into the votes of the AAP led by former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in several seats to favor the BJP which won 48 out of 70 seats. The AAP got 22.
A decade-long anti-incumbency and the lack of unity in the opposition bloc were certainly a few reasons why the AAP failed to replicate its dominant performances of 2015 and 2020 in Delhi. But there are also other factors that led to the downfall of what was seen as a promising movement a decade ago.
The idea of AAP was about creating an alternative political space free from the evils that often taint the country’s public life, including corruption. Starting from the anti-corruption movement started by veteran Gandhian Anna Hazare in 2011, which later culminated in the formation of AAP under Kejriwal, the development looked appealing to the country’s middle class and particularly the youth.
Since the second United Progressive Alliance government of the late Manmohan Singh at the Centre was left beleaguered by several corruption charges, the new movement struck a chord with people who wanted to see a change. In 2013, the AAP surprised in the Delhi elections by emerging as the second-largest party after the BJP and briefly came to power in alliance with the Congress, which it had vehemently opposed then.
Kejriwal quit as the chief minister just 48 days after taking oath since he could not table an anti-corruption bill in the Assembly. Delhi was put under the President’s Rule for nearly a year and the AAP then returned with full energy, decimating the opponents in two consecutive elections in 2015 and 2020.
Kejriwal became ‘part of system’ he wanted to clean
But the fairy tale did not run for long. The party (it has a broom as its symbol implying sweeping away the corrupt), which was set up to give India another ‘freedom’ from a corrupt system was gobbled up by the same system as seen over the past few years.
Issues such as the alleged liquor policy scam and the “Sheesh Mahal” controversy, highlighting Kejriwal’s lavish residential renovations, deeply eroded the AAP’s public image and some of the top leaders of the party, including Kejriwal and his former deputy Manish Sisodia, even got arrested. In the past, Kejriwal’s act of hugging veteran leader Lalu Prasad, often accused as a ‘symbol of corruption’ in India, had also sparked a controversy that did not suit his crusader’s identity.
Kejriwal’s over-ambition
Another major reason that brought Kejriwal’s downfall is his high ambition. As the founder-leader of a party that began its journey in 2012, he should have focused on making the party’s roots stronger. But his act of challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2014 general elections to make it big on the national stage in quick time backfired as the voters of Varanasi rejected
him. Kejriwal rushed too much to make his party an all-India entity in quick time.
One can’t deny the fact that AAP succeeded in making a mark compared to many other regional parties and also won power in Punjab -- perhaps the only regional outfit after the Communist Party of India (Marxist) to be in power in more than one state at a time.
It also made electoral inroads in states such as Gujarat and Goa. Kejriwal perhaps was not satisfied even with this rate of progress. His party also tried to project him as the prime ministerial face of the INDI Alliance in last year’s general election. The over-speeding saw him crashing where he was the most powerful – Delhi – as the local voters became increasingly disillusioned. No wonder, PM Modi said after his party won the Delhi elections: “AAP's shortcut politics have been short-circuited by people in Delhi.”
(The writer is a senior journalist and political analyst based in Bengaluru, India. The views expressed are his own)
