To create a successful start-up in politics is arguably much tougher than to create a winner in business. The entry barriers are huge. Entrenched parties will spare no effort to ward off those daring to enter long-held domains. The media tends to be derisive about small new players. Which is why for the Aam Aadmi Party, founded in 2012 on the back of the 2011 India Against Corruption movement, to have formed governments in Delhi and Punjab and become a national party in only a decade, is nothing short of remarkable.
This is the reason why even with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal jailed, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia also in prison for a year, and the party finding itself at a crossroads, the AAP is still deeply bothersome to the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party.
For the BJP, the Congress is a pushover. In the over 180 one-on-one direct fights between the BJP and Congress in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, the Congress won just about 15. Congress vs BJP is thus a no-contest. But BJP vs AAP or BJP vs Trinamool Congress? Not so easy. The AAP has wiped out the BJP in Delhi not once but twice, in the assembly polls held in 2015 and 2020. The TMC withstood an intense-as-it-gets no-holds-barred attack from the BJP in West Bengal’s assembly elections of 2021, and contrary to Delhi-based political commentary and exit polls, trounced Modi’s army.
Why’s AAP a threat to BJP?
Today, while AAP protests the arrest of its chief minister, the BJP, too, is trying to match the party protest for protest. BJP is on the streets, demanding Kejriwal’s resignation, and calling for action against him for issuing administrative instructions from jail. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) even argued in court that not only is Kejriwal the “kingpin” in the so-called “excise scam” but the whole of AAP is guilty. ED’s counsel ASG SV Raju argued: “AAP is a beneficiary which exists as a company. Every person responsible for the conduct of the company is responsible.”
Clearly, the BJP will not rest until Kejriwal is completely silenced and his presence totally erased from the campaigning and the public sphere generally. BJP wants to shut down the AAP for good by hitting at the party’s core identity of anti-corruption. The question arises: why is AAP such a mortal threat to the mighty BJP?
Several reasons: First, the urban middle class that propelled Modi to power had initially gravitated to Kejriwal during the Anna Hazare movement. Modi’s middle-class supporters were once Kejriwal’s original constituency. In fact, Kejriwal’s rise coincided with the emergence of Modi and in a sense, Kejriwal created the anti-corruption platform against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) that Modi was quick to seize upon. However, unlike Modi, Kejriwal lacked the nationwide Sangh Parivar organisation to scale up his movement into a national campaign. But AAP and Kejriwal are well suited to capture the BJP’s urban middle-class vote bank.
Second, AAP is a region-less, religion-less, dynasty-less, caste-less urban-based party, led by the IIT-educated Kejriwal. It has the potential to draw in vast sections of youth disenchanted by the perceived old-world birth-based privileges of the Congress and the divisive hate-based politics of the BJP. Kejriwal himself is only 55 years old, and others like Atishi Singh at 42 and Raghav Chadha at only 35 are even younger. Unlike the preponderance of seniors that rules Congress, AAP’s attractiveness to the young makes it a potent challenger for the BJP in the future.
Third, AAP is not rooted in any region, which is both its strength and weakness. In Bengal, the BJP is no match for a locally rooted party like the TMC, which can outdo the ‘bohiragotos’ (outsiders) in language, culture, religion, and local connectivity. AAP does not have a regional bastion and perhaps Kejriwal overstretched himself in contesting seats in Gujarat or challenging Modi in Varanasi. But if AAP can steadily but surely build an organisation, decentralise authority and create a wide second rung, the party, with its clean politics, health and education plank, has great potential for an all-India appeal.
Fourth, the schools and healthcare delivery agenda of Kejriwal has created a new political narrative that does not play on the BJP’s pitch. This is no Congress trying to outdo the BJP. The AAP simply ignores or co-opts the BJP’s religious turf. The government schools and mohalla clinic model is an out-of-the-box pitch that has nothing to do with the BJP’s agenda setting. The TMC, too, has managed this successfully with its women’s empowerment model, giving over 40 per cent representation to its women MPs in Lok Sabha and delivering on a raft of welfare schemes. Such initiatives take the wind out of the BJP’s sails because they sidestep the BJP’s political narratives on nationalism and religion.
Also read: Kejriwal arrest brought focus back on corruption & moved big electoral bonds story off-stage
The AAP experiment isn’t over
Start-ups require tenacity and persistence. The most spectacular political start-up in India—the Telugu Desam Party formed in 1982 based on the charisma of its founder actor-turned-politician NT Rama Rao, won a huge victory in 1983 less than a year after its birth. However, the TDP has been unable to reinvent itself with the times. The Ahom Gana Parishad was another 1980s start-up formed by student leaders who had launched anti-immigrant protests in Assam, but rapidly ran out of steam. The most successful start-up so far is the TMC. Mamata Banerjee consistently battled the Left Front for two decades from 1991-2011 before she finally won an election on her own in 2011 and has remained in power ever since.
It would be a mistake to think that the jailing of Kejriwal means that the AAP experiment is over. There will always remain a hankering for an alternative from the well-worn BJP-Congress duopoly. New youthful and intelligent voters might be attracted and sympathetic to a third force, particularly to young anti-establishment heroes seen to be victimised by the Centre.
Start-ups require the courage of a Mamata Banerjee, the charisma of an NTR and the smart thinking of a Kejriwal. Political start-ups bring much-needed disruption to the same-old-same-old order and challenge the existing status quo. Political start-ups should be encouraged and supported. They are the reason why India will probably not (not yet anyway) become the Opposition-mukt Bharat that the BJP dreams of.
Love them or loathe them, political start-ups like AAP and TMC make the democratic contest sharper. They have fighting spirit and dollops of rebellious energy. Reports of the death of these combative players are grossly exaggerated.
The writer is MP (Rajya Sabha), All India Trinamool Congress. She tweets @sagarikaghose. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)