Opinion Opinion: Where does the Aam Aadmi Party go from here?

The leadership must make amends now. Or else the party will head for a crash.

Vishnu Varma

New DelhiMarch 28, 2015 10:21 PM IST First published on: Mar 28, 2015 at 10:06 PM IST

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Yogendra Yadav raises slogans with supporters after he was expelled from the AAP national executive at Kapashera in New Delhi on Saturday. (PTI photo)

It proclaimed itself to be the party with a difference. A party that takes referendums seriously. A party that does not believe in autocracy or authoritative leadership. A party that holds aloft its flag of internal democracy and a strong ideology. Sadly, today all those claims stand shattered.

Scenes outside the party’s national council meeting are revealing. Almost two months after hitting a high in the Delhi elections, the Aam Aadmi Party has hit a new low with senior party leaders and workers all scrambling to conspire and produce sting operations against each other. Over the past few weeks, both camps — Kejriwal and the Yadav-Bhushan camps — have come out alternatively in front of the media to present their sides of the story. But the question is who is saying the truth? They trash each other’s claims and they all cite the hard work and determination put in by thousands of volunteers in their party’s movement. But they forget that their ensuing power struggle and bitter contests are damaging the very identity of the Aam Aadmi volunteer. Sadly, a party that once used to mock other parties for their lack of transparency has been stung by the same arrow.

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The Delhi Chief Minister said he was pained over what was happening in the party and preferred to stay away from it. (Express photo)

If Yadav-Bhushan camp’s revelations prove to be correct, then the AAP seems to be headed to becoming a single-leader party — one that runs on the whims and fancies of one leader (in this case Arvind Kejriwal). The AAP is no different then from a DMK, an AIADMK, a BSP or a Trinamool Congress. Powerful satraps govern these parties and if AAP goes the same way, its basic ideology of giving voice to the voiceless could go in for a toss.

On the other hand, if the Kejriwal camp’s side of the story turns out to be true, then it effectively means that the party is locked in a bitter fractious power struggle — one that has leaders like Yadav and Bhushan all trying hard to drive home their individual ambitions and aspirations. It means that the hunger for power and position on the part of individual leaders has overtaken the basic aim of working for the masses, rooting out corruption – issues on which this very party was founded.

The AAP leadership has to decide now. With both Yadav and Bhushan out of key decision-making processes, Kejriwal definitely has a free hand. But is this the right way to govern the party? Or was the ouster of Yadav-Bhushan necessary to bring discipline into the party? The leadership must answer these question. The party has already been dented by the infighting. It now has to make sure that it not heading for a crash.