The Aam Aadmi Party’s intellectual faces, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, are out of the powerful political affairs committee of the party and the Arvind Keriwal-Manish Sisodia camp has won. End of story, right? Not quite. The score line – 11-8 – in what could have been a one-sided affair tells us that it’s not over yet.
The Yadav-Bhushan duo didn’t give in to the pressure from the other camp to quit before the National Executive and insisted on voting. They wanted a fight. Now, party sources say, they want to take the issue to the party’s national council, a much larger body with much diverse representation than the National Executive. The infighting, if not doused with some astute in-house statesmanship, is set to escalate. It’s not a good sign for the party; and it’s not only for the fact that both Yadav and Bhushan, more so the former, are the only faces besides Kejriwal who evoke trust and respect beyond the national capital.
This is not to suggest that the duo has been above board in its conduct – sources in the party say behind the holier-than-thou public posturing of Bhushan lurked the strong motive to control the party’s organisations; Yadav had his own political ambition in demanding that the party should expand in a hurry, and neither helped the cause of the party by making wrong remarks when the party was down and struggling to be on its feet after the staggering Lok Sabha defeat. However, for an outfit which has just moved out of its movement phase to begin consolidating as a political party, lingering internal conflicts could be damaging. Decisions through numbers are only a temporary respite.
Will the party manage to wriggle out of out of what could be a pressure-cooker situation in Delhi’s tiny political space? The solution to it could be expansion. There’s just too much of restless talent and energy in the AAP – typical of all fresh and growing parties - if these qualities are not utilized judiciously they can end up singeing the party. Now that it has got firm footing in Delhi, it has to release some of its energy into the states where it has growth potential. It would keep all interfering in the functioning of the Delhi government. Basically, the party has to channelise the energy and talent available to it for politically productive purposes.
AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal. PTI
With the main opposition space still vacant, this is the best time for the AAP to expand its footprint. What helps its case is that it’s the only party with strong people connect at this point. This might not last for ever. The Congress has been subdued for a long time, but it is only a matter of time it got its act together – it’s a compulsion, not a choice. The party has a large, dormant base. Once it’s active, the first challenge of the Congress party will be to wrest back the ideological and electoral ground it ceded to AAP. If the latter stays complacent in and confined to Delhi, it will be advantage Congress.
The policies of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government and the activities of Hindutva fanatics will open up many conflict areas across the country. There are indications that a big farmers’ movement is building up against the Land Ordinance of the government. The latter may manage to win the battle of numbers in Parliament, but after that the action would shift to towns and streets. Any sensible party would latch on to that opportunity. If the AAP does not, then the Congress will. The same is the case with activities of the Hindutva fundamentalists. With the government continuing to be indifferent to their growing assertion of raw power, disillusionment has set in among the minorities and liberal Hindus. It only requires an intelligent party to make political capital of that. If the AAP fails, then some other party will move in.
The party must realise that the vacuum in the political space does not last for ever. It has to make up its mind about going the whole hog in Haryana and Punjab besides making its presence felt in urban pockets in other states quickly. Given the resources at its disposal it should not be difficult. Before internal ego issues leave deep, unbridgeable schisms in the party, it needs to act.
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