Why AAP matters: Ask AGP,TDP,CPM

As a former Indian Revenue Service officer,he understood the establishment in reforming India (economic and governance reform) and was able to tap into deep annoyance created by heightening expectations. His own IIT education,networking across its powerful old boys association and marrying the alienation of those away from power but wanting a say,the NRI with that of the jhuggi-dweller,gave him a solid,deep edge that older political parties may want to learn from.

Kejriwal played the insider-outsider role with great conviction. As his NGO and volunteers got ration cards,identity cards,Aadhar cards made for thousands,giving them a foothold in the ‘system’ they yearned to be part of,he went about trashing the ‘system’ to great advantage.

He did not hesitate to focus on his own projection as the leader people began to trust,taking on leaders far ‘bigger’ than himself. Anna Hazare’s sheen,Ramdev’s following and Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav’s articulation and persistent presence on TV resulted in Kejriwal establishing that his was a party of the educated with nothing to lose,no record that anyone could hold against him.

Imaginatively using autorickshaws,a symbol of the average Delhiwallah,he endeared himself as the underdog in a bold David versus Goliath move by taking on the formidable Sheila Dikshit. This also ensured that AAP and he were always top-of-the-mind,and never out of news. In fact,when the protests after the Delhi gangrape did not really focus on AAP and were leaderless,the AAP was quick to pick on the the rape and torture of a child a little later.

Allowing his party to be indefinable in terms of class and caste and region,it almost approximated the new face of Delhi. Kejriwal gave space to those turned away by the more staid,status-quoist BJP and Congress. Finally,borrowing the Congress symbol,the aam aadmi,Kejriwal effectively and scientifically — through Twitter and old fashioned door-to-door contact — pushed himself as the new face of a post-reform,urban India.

The AAP debut is closest,in recent times,to that of the Telugu Desam Party which,within nine months of its formation in March 1982,won the majority in the state Assembly elections and formed the government. Moreover,it became the national opposition to the Congress in 1984,when the Congress got more than 400 seats and the BJP got just 2.

When his comments were sought,TDP leader and former MP K Rammohan Rao said “people clearly want change,and through their protests with Ramdev,Anna Hazare,their anti-corruption stance and positioning,they have done well,got people on the streets and turned them into votes.” But NTR,he said,was different. “His appeal was that of a star,and virtually in all of south India. Therefore,the situation is not very comparable.”

The other party in the 1980s that made a stunning arrival was the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). After a six-year agitation against ‘illegal migrants’ in the state,and after signing the Assam Accord with Rajiv Gandhi’s government in 1983,the All Assam Students Union morphed into the AGP and went on to win the polls in 1985. It formed the government again in 1996.

Atul Bora,AGP working president,sees similarities between then and now in the AAP’s political success. “We too were an aam aadmi party,if you look closely. We fought elections immediately after our formation and won them. We too were opposed to the Congress corruption then and are now exactly like the AAP. We think what has happened now in assemblies is what will happen in the general  elections.”

The CPM,another champion of the non-Congress,non-BJP parties that once breached the Congress’s Bengal fortress to stay on for 34 years,is more circumspect. Nilotpal Basu,member of the CPM central committee,said: “We are yet to study this in detail. But it was clear that there was deep resentment against the Centre’s policies on the lives of the people. That benefitted a fresh entrant. But it will be premature to say that this can be replicated elsewhere. Delhi is very unique,very urban.”