Think of Robin Hood and his gang of do-gooders who robbed the rich to help the poor. Well, that’s the image of the Aam Aadmi Party, which, starting off as a movement against corruption turned into a political party that would take up cudgels on behalf of the ordinary man and woman. Corruption and the rallying cry against it was the glue that brought a band of activists together. The hoardings that dot Delhi play on the same theme: “If you know an official to be corrupt, say ‘yes’ when he seeks [a] bribe and quietly record him. We, the government of ordinary men, will put the corrupt official behind bars.” This was righteous indignation on display and rightly so. Until, that is, charges of faking a degree were filed against the Law Minister, Jitender Singh Tomar. The issue now haunts Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP.
The case of two Law Ministers
On the morning of June 12, Mr. Kejriwal’s office was in a huddle and the Chief Minister was still mulling his options. Party workers close to him said he was upset at the turn of events. It was probably Mr. Tomar’s degree in law that had made him eligible for the legal portfolio; his twitter handle proclaims @advocatejstomar as well. Now, the allegation of a fake degree, while by no means novel in India, are yet a body blow to a party that claims to be completely hat ke ( party with a difference).
That morning, the clamour for Mr. Tomar’s scalp had increased manifold within the party. This too, they all said, is corruption. There were others who wondered whether dumping Mr. Tomar was a wise move. What if similar allegations were made against someone else, say, against the Chief Minister himself, they asked. But by late afternoon, despite reports coming in that Mr. Tomar may have sat for his law examination and failed, only to clear it in the second attempt, and murmurs that his case could be referred to the party’s ombudsman, it was clear that the MLA from Trinagar would have to step down from the party.
This isn’t Mr. Kejriwal’s only headache. He also has to contend with the charges of domestic abuse against his former Law Minister Somnath Bharti. “We were shocked to hear this, as we were aware that Mr. Bharti and his wife were living separately for some time now. This revelation was news to us,” said party workers. This is not the first time that Mr. Bharti is entangled in a controversy. In 2014, based on inputs from people in his neighbourhood who had voted him to power, Mr. Bharti had raided houses in South Delhi’s Khirki extension area, in the process humiliating women of African origin. Despite criticism then, Mr. Kejriwal had stood by Mr. Bharti and had even gone on an agitation to express solidarity. Both law ministers had cut their teeth like everyone in the party on activism. Both men are firm Kejriwal loyalists, according to senior party workers.
For a party whose default position is agitation, Mr. Kejriwal and his men have had many opportunities to protest. Almost everyone in AAP is a diehard activist with a cause to back. Yet, as The Hindu report of June 12 showed, at least nine AAP MLAs have been caught straying on the wrong side of the law. Several charges have been levelled against them, ranging from slapping a government official to stocking illicit liquor. As the charges flew thick in the air, what was felt most strongly was the absence of people who could articulate the position of the party well.
AAP is facing a tough time battling the obstacles thrown at it. Even as it faces an internal crisis, an external one has been brought upon it by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, who is working in tandem with a Centre that is no mood to oblige the State government, especially one that has thrown the biggest electoral challenge to the BJP juggernaut.
Losing early sheen
Sadly, in tackling its formidable internal strife, the party does not look very hat ke from other parties. All that Mr. Kejriwal has to do to in the tricky situation of misbehaving members is to distance himself from the troublesome MLAs. He has a good number of MLAs — 67 — and can easily exercise that choice. But he hasn’t done it so far. When the party came to power on February 10 in what was described as a landmark victory, it took some time for the committed band of activists to come to terms with the verdict. But wearing honesty as its badge, the AAP, which had endeared itself to a country tired of corruption, could have continued to display its honesty with some bold decisions of denouncing erring ministers. Instead, just as the country was getting used to its trademark politics of earnestness and agitation, AAP slipped. The problem could be that the party lost the few men who had provided it with intellectual heft. When the party snapped ties with academic Yogendra Yadav, advocate Prashant Bhushan, and professors Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha, it seemed to lose some of its early sheen.
Most AAP volunteers say the academics were too bookish in their approach to politics. This implies that with activism as its default mode, the party found little use for the academics. Yet, it was these bookish men who had raised a question mark on the credentials of at least 12 members who were on the shortlist for election tickets. These names were later cleared by the party’s Lokpal. When the poll results were announced, a thick file had again come by, raising a question mark on Mr. Tomar’s legal credentials.
Says former AAP member Yogendra Yadav, “That the LG has been quite partisan is no secret, yet the real issue here is not political vendetta but one of ethics and integrity.” Both appear to have taken a knock in the Tomar episode. As academic Shiv Vishvanathan says, “At one level, it appears as though people have joined AAP like they join a business, a dhanda. At another level, there is the bigger issue of whether AAP wants to move beyond Delhi and if so, how. The party has been hobbled by the Centre; it seems trapped in a situation not entirely of its own making and all that it can do now is agitate.”
AAP member Ashutosh says, “The party has to move from its current agitation mode and look beyond Delhi. And this is what we are working on. Decision-making has become a lot more democratic now. Prashant and Yogendra were too bookish and too socialist in their approach.”
It is quite possible that a bunch of do-gooders can get its act wrong. The AAP is finding it hard to face up to this. It is time for AAP to realise that there will always be rotten apples that must be thrown out quickly, and the party and the government must get on with business.
