A triple whammy for AAP

Dinesh Sharma

Trivendra Singh Rawat The crushing defeat of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the three municipal corporations of Delhi (MCD) appears to have finally dashed the vaulting ambition of its leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who pretended to offer an alternative to the established political parties. The AAP had hoped to wrest the three MCDs controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the past decade. While the BJP romped home with 181 seats out of 272, the AAP could scrape through only 48 seats. It was a complete washout for a party that had literally made a clean sweep in 2015 Assembly elections by winning 67 out of 70 seats. The Congress ended up as a poor third with only 30 seats in the three civic bodies. Though it increased its share of votes compared to the Assembly elections of 2015, it could not get rid of its image as an also-ran political entity.
Though the issues in the civic elections were of a local nature, voters in the capital were keen to judge the AAP more for the way it has run the State Government since 2015 than the BJP in running the three civic bodies. This became amply clear when nearly 53.53 per cent of the voters turned out to cast their votes in defiance of the searing heat of Delhi.
The BJP campaign was run by the President of its Delhi unit Manoj Tiwari, a popular Bhojpuri actorsinger with a great sway over voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh collectively known as Poorwanchalis. The party, faced with strong antiincumbency and poor performance of many of its corporators, in a drastic decision replaced all its incumbents with new faces, which too seems to have worked in favour of the party.
The Congress show was run by Ajay Maken, Delhi chief of the party and a confidant of party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. There was so much resentment in the Congress against Maken's dominance in ticket distribution that the most prominent Sikh face of the party Arvinder Singh Lovely quit only a couple of days before the elections and joined the BJP. And three times Congress Chief

For the AAP the sole mascot was Delhi Chief Minister who in desperation to win the crucial civic elections promised the moon to the voters. His biggest allurement was to waive the property tax as he had done earlier by dangling out free water and electricity.

Minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit squarely blamed Maken for the debacle.
For the AAP the sole mascot was Delhi Chief Minister who in desperation to win the crucial civic elections promised the moon to the voters. His biggest allurement was to waive the property tax as he had done earlier by dangling out free water and electricity. But the discerning voters of the capital refused to take the bait. "After all you cannot run the civic bodies without house tax which is a major source of revenue", was how people generally reacted.
For obvious reasons the elections were like no other. The municipal elections would have hardly sent a ripple across the nation. But as the results of the three municipal corporations of Delhi (MCD) began to pour in, decimating the Aam Aadmi Party, one thing was clear that they are a rude rebuke to the newfangled experiment embodied by the AAP.
Psephologists and political analysts will offer a raft of explanations for the impact of the U.P. Assembly elections and the charisma of Narendra Modi.
They are certainly the factors that have helped the BJP. But beyond that there is a message for the AAP and its petulant leader Arvind Kejriwal.

For the AAP the verdict of the people of Delhi could not have come at a worse time. The party that was supposed to have captured power in the Goa and Punjab Assembly elections has come a cropper in its own bastion. The second drubbing of the party was in the recent by-election for the Rajouri Garden Assembly seat which it lost to the Akali Dal candidate who had contested on the symbol of the BJP.
The abysmal failure of the AAP to win the civic elections in Delhi has completed the humiliations being heaped on it one after the other. The malaise afflicting the AAP is much deeper than the party would admit. To cap it all, he has made himself a butt of joke by blaming rigged electronic voting machines, which sounds like a fabrication out of whole cloth.
After Kejriwal and the AAP roared back to power in Delhi Assembly elections in 2015, they thought that the distance between Parliament and the State Assembly would be covered in a single sprint. So he began attacking the BJP and the Prime Minister blaming the latter for his non-performance.
But the disillusionment of the people of Delhi became sharper due to the style of functioning of Kejriwal. The AAP was born out of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement to fight the rot pervading the political system in the country. Kejriwal supported by several eminent leaders of civil society like Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi and Yogendra Yadav promised a new dawn. The battle cry was to root out corruption from the entire political system. The goal of the IAC was to get a Jan Lokpal Bill with provision for investigation and trial of corruption cases against public servants and force overall reforms of the political system.
No wonder, the people saw Kejriwal as the second coming of Jayprakash Narayan. However, Kejriwal rather than taking the movement to its logical conclusion took a ninety degree turn. He literally embraced convicted politicians like Lalu Yadav and traded the Congress for the BJP as his bête noir.

Kejriwal took a leaf out of the Marxist textbook and went on a spree to purge all those who were the pillars of the movement against corruption. He not only sidelined his mentor Anna Hazare, the moral force behind the movement, but got rid of all the leaders like Yogendra Yadav, and Prashant Bhushan.

He soon packed his party with his own yes-men and began to recruit people left and right without considering their backgrounds.
The result was that many of this MLAs either had to resign because of scandals or Kejriwal threw them out because they tried to raise a voice of dissent. One MLA had to quit in the aftermath of a sex scandal video going viral in the social media while its Bawana MLA Ved Prakash quit the party and joined the BJP while the electioneering for the civic elections was in full swing.
Former Food and Supply Minister Asim Ahmad Khan was sacked in 2015 after he landed himself in a bribery case. Another party MLA from Janakpuri Assembly constituency Rajesh Rishi caused a flutter by twitting about the culture of sycophancy in the party.
A party that had claimed the moral high ground found itself enmeshed in a plethora of cases of irregularities and outright corruption. The Shunglu Committee report came down on the party like a ton of bricks. The Committee headed by former Comptroller and Auditor -General V.K. Shunglu had been set up by earlier Lieut. Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung.

N. Gopalaswami and Pradeep Kumar There has been no end of troubles for the party-- a full-blown scandal over a "spy unit" set up by the Delhi Government and an official lunch hosted by it reportedly cost Rs. 13,000 per plate. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the spying case. The federal investigative agency has found that the appointments for what was billed as a 'Feedback Unit' were done without going through the proper process. Since the approval of the Lieut.
Governor was not taken the creation of 88 posts for the Feedback Unit was found to be illegal.
The committee comprising former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami and former Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar indicted the Delhi Government for allotment of land to the AAP for party office in clear violation of guidelines, "illegal and unqualified" appointments of those close to the Chief Minister and state ministers and unjustified foreign jaunts at the cost of tax payers' money.
Now the million-dollar question is, where does the AAP or, for that matter, its mentor Arvind Kejriwal go from here? With the sword of likely disqualification of 21 AAP MLAs because of the office of profit issue hanging over the Delhi Government, the defeat of the party in the civic elections is only a foretaste of the time to come.



		EDITOR'S MAIL MATTERS OF PUBLIC POLICY MARCH OF AYODHYA INDIAN PRESIDENCY REALPOLITIK FOR CREDIBLE OPPOSITION A GAME CHANGER DEFENCE MODERNISATION STATE OF EDUCATION DELHI MCD POLLS FRANKLY SPEAKING SACRILEGE IN PUNJAB KASHMIR WATCH CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN POLL-YEAR HIMACHAL KERALA UNDER LDF CHANDIGARH DIARY U.S. FOREIGN POLICY AMERICAN DIARY JADAV ISSUE INDO-BANGLADESH TIES CIVIL AVIATION HITS & MISSES TEST CRICKET SPORTS BOOK BAZAAR SIGNS OF THE TIMES MIGRATION & WOMEN'S RIGHTS YOGA IN DAILY LIFE-XIII ART OF LIVING Issue:May' 2017 Subscribe Now	DELHI MCD POLLS A triple whammy for AAP Dinesh Sharma Trivendra Singh Rawat The crushing defeat of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the three municipal corporations of Delhi (MCD) appears to have finally dashed the vaulting ambition of its leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who pretended to offer an alternative to the established political parties. The AAP had hoped to wrest the three MCDs controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the past decade. While the BJP romped home with 181 seats out of 272, the AAP could scrape through only 48 seats. It was a complete washout for a party that had literally made a clean sweep in 2015 Assembly elections by winning 67 out of 70 seats. The Congress ended up as a poor third with only 30 seats in the three civic bodies. Though it increased its share of votes compared to the Assembly elections of 2015, it could not get rid of its image as an also-ran political entity. Though the issues in the civic elections were of a local nature, voters in the capital were keen to judge the AAP more for the way it has run the State Government since 2015 than the BJP in running the three civic bodies. This became amply clear when nearly 53.53 per cent of the voters turned out to cast their votes in defiance of the searing heat of Delhi. The BJP campaign was run by the President of its Delhi unit Manoj Tiwari, a popular Bhojpuri actorsinger with a great sway over voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh collectively known as Poorwanchalis. The party, faced with strong antiincumbency and poor performance of many of its corporators, in a drastic decision replaced all its incumbents with new faces, which too seems to have worked in favour of the party. The Congress show was run by Ajay Maken, Delhi chief of the party and a confidant of party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. There was so much resentment in the Congress against Maken's dominance in ticket distribution that the most prominent Sikh face of the party Arvinder Singh Lovely quit only a couple of days before the elections and joined the BJP. And three times Congress Chief For the AAP the sole mascot was Delhi Chief Minister who in desperation to win the crucial civic elections promised the moon to the voters. His biggest allurement was to waive the property tax as he had done earlier by dangling out free water and electricity. Minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit squarely blamed Maken for the debacle. For the AAP the sole mascot was Delhi Chief Minister who in desperation to win the crucial civic elections promised the moon to the voters. His biggest allurement was to waive the property tax as he had done earlier by dangling out free water and electricity. But the discerning voters of the capital refused to take the bait. "After all you cannot run the civic bodies without house tax which is a major source of revenue", was how people generally reacted. For obvious reasons the elections were like no other. The municipal elections would have hardly sent a ripple across the nation. But as the results of the three municipal corporations of Delhi (MCD) began to pour in, decimating the Aam Aadmi Party, one thing was clear that they are a rude rebuke to the newfangled experiment embodied by the AAP. Psephologists and political analysts will offer a raft of explanations for the impact of the U.P. Assembly elections and the charisma of Narendra Modi. They are certainly the factors that have helped the BJP. But beyond that there is a message for the AAP and its petulant leader Arvind Kejriwal. For the AAP the verdict of the people of Delhi could not have come at a worse time. The party that was supposed to have captured power in the Goa and Punjab Assembly elections has come a cropper in its own bastion. The second drubbing of the party was in the recent by-election for the Rajouri Garden Assembly seat which it lost to the Akali Dal candidate who had contested on the symbol of the BJP. The abysmal failure of the AAP to win the civic elections in Delhi has completed the humiliations being heaped on it one after the other. The malaise afflicting the AAP is much deeper than the party would admit. To cap it all, he has made himself a butt of joke by blaming rigged electronic voting machines, which sounds like a fabrication out of whole cloth. After Kejriwal and the AAP roared back to power in Delhi Assembly elections in 2015, they thought that the distance between Parliament and the State Assembly would be covered in a single sprint. So he began attacking the BJP and the Prime Minister blaming the latter for his non-performance. But the disillusionment of the people of Delhi became sharper due to the style of functioning of Kejriwal. The AAP was born out of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement to fight the rot pervading the political system in the country. Kejriwal supported by several eminent leaders of civil society like Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi and Yogendra Yadav promised a new dawn. The battle cry was to root out corruption from the entire political system. The goal of the IAC was to get a Jan Lokpal Bill with provision for investigation and trial of corruption cases against public servants and force overall reforms of the political system. No wonder, the people saw Kejriwal as the second coming of Jayprakash Narayan. However, Kejriwal rather than taking the movement to its logical conclusion took a ninety degree turn. He literally embraced convicted politicians like Lalu Yadav and traded the Congress for the BJP as his bête noir. Kejriwal took a leaf out of the Marxist textbook and went on a spree to purge all those who were the pillars of the movement against corruption. He not only sidelined his mentor Anna Hazare, the moral force behind the movement, but got rid of all the leaders like Yogendra Yadav, and Prashant Bhushan. He soon packed his party with his own yes-men and began to recruit people left and right without considering their backgrounds. The result was that many of this MLAs either had to resign because of scandals or Kejriwal threw them out because they tried to raise a voice of dissent. One MLA had to quit in the aftermath of a sex scandal video going viral in the social media while its Bawana MLA Ved Prakash quit the party and joined the BJP while the electioneering for the civic elections was in full swing. Former Food and Supply Minister Asim Ahmad Khan was sacked in 2015 after he landed himself in a bribery case. Another party MLA from Janakpuri Assembly constituency Rajesh Rishi caused a flutter by twitting about the culture of sycophancy in the party. A party that had claimed the moral high ground found itself enmeshed in a plethora of cases of irregularities and outright corruption. The Shunglu Committee report came down on the party like a ton of bricks. The Committee headed by former Comptroller and Auditor -General V.K. Shunglu had been set up by earlier Lieut. Governor of Delhi Najeeb Jung. N. Gopalaswami and Pradeep Kumar There has been no end of troubles for the party-- a full-blown scandal over a "spy unit" set up by the Delhi Government and an official lunch hosted by it reportedly cost Rs. 13,000 per plate. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is probing the spying case. The federal investigative agency has found that the appointments for what was billed as a 'Feedback Unit' were done without going through the proper process. Since the approval of the Lieut. Governor was not taken the creation of 88 posts for the Feedback Unit was found to be illegal. The committee comprising former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami and former Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar indicted the Delhi Government for allotment of land to the AAP for party office in clear violation of guidelines, "illegal and unqualified" appointments of those close to the Chief Minister and state ministers and unjustified foreign jaunts at the cost of tax payers' money. Now the million-dollar question is, where does the AAP or, for that matter, its mentor Arvind Kejriwal go from here? With the sword of likely disqualification of 21 AAP MLAs because of the office of profit issue hanging over the Delhi Government, the defeat of the party in the civic elections is only a foretaste of the time to come.