AAP: Election debacles to corruptions. Is it the end of a Great Indian Dream?

When Aam Admi Party was launched formally on 26th Nov in the year 2012 it was considered nothing less than the fulfillment of the hope of a whole nation, especially of its youth. The party which had taken its inspiration from the veteran activist Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement called 'India Against Corruption' was looked upon as a much awaited remedy for the corruption prevalent in the nation and especially in its political sphere.

Reeling from the doom and gloom casted by the ten long years of two consecutive UPA governments, with its later installment even gaining the name ‘the mother of all corrupt governments’, the nation was desperate for an alternative for all the existing political outfits. It was then that the Anna Hazare movement and later its offshoot the AAP caught the imagination of the country. The Indian youth were literally pouring in from across the globe to join the Aam Aadmi Party, leaving behind their fat pay-cheques with a single dream of playing a role in cleansing the corrupt systems of their country.

It was a euphoria. Everybody thought at the minimum that this new party which will force other big players in the Indian political system to change themselves into a much cleaner way. And hence there was a hope that a new era of clean politics will herald in the Indian political horizon.

But today after five years from its inception and two years into power in Delhi, AAP stands discredited leaving those who had placed their trust in it utterly disappointed. The Delhi MCD results which came on 26th of April 2017 and the result of the by-poll of Delhi’s Rajauri Garden couple of weeks earlier to it are the proof enough to suggest that AAP has became a huge failure and disappointment as a party which will need to struggle even for its very survival now.

 

Now the only question remains to be answered is that:

Is it the end of AAP? 

Is it the end of an Indian dream about a catalyst for a corruption-free India?

There are majorly two factors which have contributed to this meteoric rise and fall of AAP. One factor for its fall or rather for its growing irrelevance is the emergence of a much cleaner, able and proven BJP under the leadership of an even cleaner and proven taskmaster Modi into the leadership of the nation.

And the second reason for its abrupt fall, which is the most obvious one, is in the way the party conducted itself in the last 2 years after storming into power in Delhi with a whopping 67 out of 70 seats. People of Delhi had voted AAP solely for a better and corruption-free governance. But unfortunately which turned out to be the last thing in Kejriwal’s list of priorities in which his Prime Ministerial ambition was on top of everything. And in the hindsight one can see that on top of everything the noise pollution and drama created on every alternative day by Kejriwal, driven by his desire to become Prime Minister as fast as possible, didn’t go down well with the people.

Adding into the woes of AAP is a spate of corruption allegations, latest of the lot being triggered by its own MLA Kapil Mishra against Kejriwal. Even though the mud-slinging within the party is not a new thing for them, this time around it assumes greater significance. May be for the first time it is the self declared anti-corruption crusader Kejriwal himself is under direct and severe attack this time, that too from his own house. 

But it may not be all over yet. The concept ‘Aam Aadmi’ is something India will not love to lose. It was a dream nurtured by the youth of this nation, flourished on the sweat of an army of selfless volunteers. It will be a gross injustice if it is allowed to be high jacked by few individuals including Kejriwal. If AAP is ready to undergo a course correction and willing to go back to its founding principle of anti-corruption and transparency and to get rid of the anti-national tendencies sneaked into it, then they still have a place in Indian politics, be it with a sane Kejriwal or sans a Kejriwal at all.