Charges by rivals, murmurs within roil AAP with just days to go for LS elections

With about a week to go for general elections, every political party in India is a whirlwind of frenzied activity as leaders criss-cross the length and breadth of the country to shore up support for their candidates.

But the country’s youngest political outfit is fighting an existential battle in which it is trying to repel its opponents and keep its flock together. This moment of extraordinary chaos for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) — especially after its most-popular figure, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the now-scrapped Delhi liquor policy – has been compounded by the defection of leaders such as its lone Lok Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Rinku and Delhi social justice minister Raaj Kumar Anand, and the conspicuous silence of a clutch of other senior leaders, especially Rajya Sabha members including Raghav Chadha and Swati Maliwal.

Kejriwal was arrested on March 21 by ED, hours after the Delhi high court denied his request for interim protection from arrest — a startling turn of events that left the Capital’s politics in turmoil and pushed to new heights the ongoing conflict between the Union government and the AAP. Two other top leaders, Manish Sisodia and Sateyendar Jain remain behind bars.

Hours after Kejriwal’s arrest, the party vowed to hit the streets in protest and said that the public would respond to the BJP’s “high-handedness” at the polls. But the silence of senior leaders has spurred speculation about more desertions and fuelled suggestions that the party is imploding.

MPs missing from the front line

The AAP is attempting to set a furious pace on the ground with near-daily press conferences, combative interviews, and reaching out to allies in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA). But while one set of leaders – such as recently freed Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, and senior Delhi ministers Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj, and even Arvind Kejriwal’s wife Sunita – have become the face of the party across the Capital and in the media, another set of leaders appear to be sitting out a crisis that threatens to irrevocably damage a party that held ambitions of becoming India’s biggest Opposition outfit.

After Rinku’s defection to the BJP last month, the party has no Lok Sabha members. In the Rajya Sabha, it has 10 members – three from Delhi and seven from Punjab – and most of them have not joined the party’s programmes.

The party denied the charge that a section of leaders were deliberately inactive.

Bharadwaj said efforts were being made to falsely project cracks within the AAP to break the party. “Even earlier, the Rajya Sabha MPs (of Punjab) did not even come to join the protests. Before Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest, did you ever see AAP Punjab MPs joining a protest being organised by AAP near the BJP office? Did you ever see Harbhajan Singh climbing a barricade? All these talks are baseless. I believe that efforts are being made to project cracks within the ranks of AAP with the intention to break AAP. It is nothing more than that,” Bharadwaj said on Friday.

Among those whose absence has been noticed the most is Punjab MP Raghav Chadha, a close aide of Kejriwal who handled important departments in the party, became the Rajender Nagar lawmaker in 2020 and served as the vice-chairman of the Delhi Jal Board, before being sent to the Upper House last year.

Chadha, who has in the past led the party’s attacks on political rivals, has been in London since last month for eye surgery and is yet to return, though his wife, actor Parineeti Chopra, has returned ahead of the release of her movie, Amar Singh Chamkila.

Chadha has, however, been vocal on X over the arrest of Kejriwal and AAP’s politics, and has changed his profile picture to one of the CM behind bars, in accordance with the party’s line. He has posted about the party’s press conferences and addresses by Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal. “INDIA that is Bharat, will unitedly protest against Arvind Kejriwal ji’s illegal and outrightly political arrest,” he had said on March 24.

But the delay in his return has fuelled speculation about his political future. Chadha did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Another senior leader who is currently abroad is Delhi Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal, who made a name for herself as a street fighter in her previous stint as the chief of the Delhi Women’s Commission. Maliwal, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha in January, is currently in the US where her sister is recuperating from an illness. She is scheduled to attend an informal meet-and-greet in New Jersey on April 13.

“Sister’s treatment is getting completed and I am coming very soon…I will fight against enemies of the country like you from the streets to Parliament…and yes, I have been working with Arvind Kejriwal even before you learnt to say BJP and will continue to do so till my last breath,” she posted on X on March 29, in response to a post by BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya.

The third Delhi Rajya Sabha MP, ND Gupta, is not active on social media, but participated at the INDIA bloc’s rally at Ramlila Maidan on April 1 and also took part during the collective fast the party observed at Jantar Mantar on Sunday. However, since his entry into the AAP in 2018, he has largely kept a low profile.

In Punjab, the party has six Rajya Sabha MPs other than Chadha.

This includes cricketer Harbhajan Singh. On social media, the former India spinner has posted about the IPL and religious events, with no reference at all to his party’s turmoil.

Another AAP Rajya Sabha member from the state is businessman-turned-politician Ashok Kumar Mittal, also the founder of Lovely Professional University.

The other Rajya Sabha members from the state – including Balbir Singh Seechewal, Vikramjit Sahney and Sanjeev Arora – have also remained largely quiet. Only Sandeep Pathak, who is also the party’s national general secretary (organisation), has taken an active part in protests.

Singh, Seechewal, Sahney and Mittal did not participate in protests held against Kejriwal’s arrest.

Seechewal said that his only purpose of his joining the party is “to propagate environmental issues”.

“I had conveyed my stance to the party’s senior leadership, including chief minister Bhagwant Mann, that I would not be involved in any political affairs and events. Even CM Mann had agreed to it then and supported my cause of raising environmental issues,” he added.

Sahney and Mittal did not respond to requests seeking comment.

To be sure, Arora, Sahney, Mittal and Sandeep Pathak met Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal at the chief minister’s residence late on Thursday evening and expressed their solidarity with the party and the family.

Questions over other leaders

Kejriwal’s arrest has engulfed the party in a crisis at a time when its alliance with the Congress for the Lok Sabha polls was just taking off. The challenge for the party is to get battle ready before May 25, when the seven seats of Delhi go to the polls. All seven constituencies are held by the BJP.

But rumours are flying in the Delhi unit about the future of transport minister Kailash Gahlot, who handles five important departments including home and transport. Unlike all Delhi ministers, Gahlot did not arrive at the CM’s residence on March 21 when Kejriwal was arrested but showed up the next morning to meet Sunita Kejriwal. He has since not addressed major rallies or press conferences, though he has spoken in the media against the BJP. “People’s sympathy is with Arvind Kejriwal. People are angry at how Arvind Kejriwal was arrested and jailed. Before the elections, Arvind Kejriwal was arrested and people will respond to this dictatorship through their votes in this Lok Sabha election…” he told ANI on April 7.

Gopal Rai is the chief of AAP’s Delhi unit and has been on the frontline of the party’s attack against the BJP. He has been among the core group of leaders who have planned the party’s political activities, mobilised workers and shaping the Lok Sabha election campaigns in Delhi in the wake of Kejriwal’s arrest.

In Punjab, where the party swept to power in 2022 with a landslide mandate, the AAP is facing a different problem.

The common thread running through the speeches of most party leaders, including Mann, is the arrest of Kejriwal and the alleged conspiracy to destabilise the AAP governments in Delhi and Punjab. They are also pushing campaigns such as “Jail da jawab vote se” and “Modi ka sabse bada dar Kejriwal”.

“His arrest has gone down badly as people of Punjab detest the high-handedness of the central government. Punjab has a history of backing those who take on Delhi,” said AAP’s state working president Budh Ram, but added that Kejriwal’s absence is being felt on the campaign trail.

The party is also facing a volley of attacks from the Congress and the BJP, especially on its plank of anti-corruption. A key theme of the party’s campaign in 2022 was the promise to eradicate corruption but the liquor policy allegations have cast a long shadow over its credentials.

The Opposition is now demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the Punjab liquor policy of Punjab. ED is already looking into the matter and had carried out searches in 2022 at the residences of two officers associated with the policy.

“The AAP started out as a niche party against corruption in high places but the anti-corruption campaign is losing sheen due to all these allegations,” said Ashutosh Kumar, professor of political science at Panjab University, Chandigarh.

In this turmoil, the absence of its front line Rajya Sabha leaders is being keenly felt. “These MPs represent the AAP, but most of them have not been participating in any political activity of the party,” a miffed ex-MLA said, requesting anonymity. “There must be some accountability.”