A Party That Lost Its Fig Leaf

AAP grew overambitious; its leader anyway tended to be autocratic. The party’s slide began when it became unscrupulous. Will it reform its ways?

- Mayank Gandhi

For what is still notionally an anti-corruption party, I thought this was the nadir: give a Rajya Sabha seat to a millionaire who had recently defected from the Congress—that, after striking a deal on getting him nominated to Parliament. What’s more, the man, Sushil Gupta, is also part of an “education mafia”, as termed by Manish Sisodia, a leader of the very party, AAP.

But the slide didn’t end there! Just one-and-a-half month thence, after the midnight of February 19, two legislators of the ruling AAP assaulted none less than Delhi’s chief secretary (CS). The MLAs, Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jar­wal—both have a criminal record—manhandled Anshu Prakash after the soft-spoken IAS officer was summoned to the residence of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

A third of the 21 cameras in the venue were shut down, yet I believe the ruckus wasn’t pre-planned. It might have happened on the spur of the moment, with Kejriwal raising his voice and telling the CS that the CM was the unchallenged malik of the National Capital Territory. At this, the top bureaucrat might have aver­red he is answerable only to the Lieuten­ant General. That may have incensed some hotheaded MLAs.