Meaning of Kejriwal's Resignation

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has surprised everyone by announcing that he will be resigning from his post by 18 September. He was released from jail recently after the Supreme Court accepted his bail application. The statement created a stir in political circles and it has brought Delhi into election mode. In the normal course, Delhi assembly elections would be held in February 2025. Congress has welcomed his resignation but has said that he should have resigned at the time of going to jail and called it a “gimmick”. BJP has said that it is a political stunt and he had no choice but to resign. Kejriwal has said that he will not sit on the CM's chair until "people give their verdict".

So why did Kejriwal decide to resign just before the assembly election? To understand the reasons due to which he was forced to take this decision there is a need to look at the history of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). It emerged out of the anti-corruption movement of 2011-12 which was fought under the banner of India Against Corruption. This movement was led by Anna Hazare and Kejriwal. Subsequently, Kejriwal's team reached the conclusion that the system cannot be improved without entering politics and as a result, AAP was formed.

Anna Hazare distanced himself from this decision of Kejriwal. After the formation of Aam Aadmi Party, Kejriwal declared that all the political parties of the country are involved in corruption and the newly formed AAP was an alternative to all the corrupt political parties and they will uproot corruption from the country. AAP defeated the ruling Congress and opposition BJP and gained power in Delhi. Similarly, they benefited from the split in Congress and the rift in the BJP-Akali alliance in Punjab and formed the government in Punjab. Due to the votes received in Punjab, Delhi and Gujarat, AAP was recognized by the Election Commission as a national party in a short period.

But one thing that AAP has understood is that today it is forced to form an alliance with all those parties which it once used to call the kingpins of corruption, especially the Congress. That is also after central security agencies at the behest of Modi government picked up Kejriwal and its leaders in liquor scam. AAP has had to learn some hard lessons of politics - that it is necessary to decide who is your biggest political enemy, and ally with others to defeat it. The result of this is that today, AAP is a part of the Opposition’s broad political platform INDIA.

However, any kind of alliance with Congress is impossible in the assembly elections of Delhi and Haryana because Congress is the contender for power in Haryana and AAP is the contender for power in Delhi, and both of them would not want to form an alliance with each other in their respective strong states.

Reasons for AAP's success

Now let us look at Delhi more closely. After coming to power, AAP has definitely done some good work due to which the people of Delhi have got a lot of relief and due to which the support for AAP kept increasing. This included decisions like cheap electricity, water, improvement in school education, free medicines in hospitals, free travel for women in DTC buses, and other popular measures. But despite all this, AAP could not win a single seat in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, despite having an alliance with Congress, neither Congress nor AAP could win a single seat in Delhi. In Punjab, it could win only three out of 13 Lok Sabha seats. In the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections, the party got 134 seats out of 250, but the difference in vote percentage between BJP and Aam Aadmi Party was only 3 percentage points. Although the vote share increased in the Lok Sabha elections, not getting a single seat was not a pleasant thing for the AAP party.

Excise Policy 2021-2022

Due to the change in the excise policy of Delhi, Kejriwal and AAP have suffered the biggest blow. The imprisonment of more than half a dozen party leaders including Kejriwal in corruption cases has dented the image of the party. Although no one is averse to the fact that if any scam has taken place under the new excise policy, then it should be investigated impartially, and the culprits should be punished but the political bias with which the investigative agencies are being used to suppress the opposition leaders brings the whole investigation under suspicion. The way the Chief Minister of Delhi and senior ministers were put in jail, seems less like an investigation of the liquor scam and more like political bias. It seems like another chapter of the BJP’s vindictive campaign against the AAP government in Delhi.

Confrontation between the Lieutenant Governor and the Modi government

Ever since the AAP came to power, tensions between the Modi government and the Delhi government led by Kejriwal started. Due to this strained relationship, there have been frequent clashes between them on many issues. Excise policy, training of teachers in Finland, free yoga classes, Mohalla clinics, transfer of bureaucrats, sanction of funds, control over the Anti-Corruption Branch and extension of power subsidy to consumers are some of the issues on which the Lieutenant Governor (LG) – a nominee of the Union government – has been at loggerheads with the Delhi Government. As a result, in October last year, the Delhi government shut down the "Yogshala of Delhi" scheme, claiming that the LG had not given it the green signal. It also alleged that the Finance Department did not sanction funds for payment of electricity bills, rent, lab tests and salaries of doctors of Mohalla clinics at the behest of LG. The list of these conflicts is quite long. It has been felt that the kind of treatment a democratically elected state government is getting at the hands of the Central government is a violation of the Constitution. The common people of Delhi have suffered the brunt of this. This conflict also proved that the Modi government does not want to let any opposition party run the government. Such conflicts have been seen with other governments such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other states. Due to this conflict, many schemes of the Delhi government are hanging in the balance.

The current crisis of Aam Aadmi Party

Due to all this, the Aam Aadmi Party started to feel that in the coming days, its political influence on the common people is likely to reduce. The biggest confirmation of this was seen in the recently held Lok Sabha elections when the AAP-Congress alliance could not win a single seat. This is even though Kejriwal was granted bail by the court to campaign in the elections. The biggest thing that is bothering the Aam Aadmi Party is that its top leaders have gone to jail in corruption cases or are still in jails. Therefore, looking at the continuous defeat in the Lok Sabha elections and the campaign of the Modi government against the party, AAP has realized that it will be difficult to fight this without going among the people and creating public opinion in favor of AAP again.

Political lesson

Somewhere the Aam Aadmi Party also needs to learn this political lesson that corruption is an issue which is built in country’s system, which is direct result of those economic policies which the Modi government and most of the state governments are adopting. The Kejriwal government itself has been in favour of privatisation and has not been able to reverse it in government departments. Due to which the youth of Delhi have very few opportunities for government jobs. The condition of the workers is very bad in Delhi. Factory workers and employees in the services sector do not even get the statutory minimum wage. Faced with a lack of jobs youth of Delhi are forced to work on a pitiable monthly salary of Rs 8000 to 10,000. The Kejriwal government has not taken any steps to address this. A large number of workers in Delhi come from Dalit communities. There is a need to make special provisions for them. These are some key issues that Kejriwal and his party needs to address if he aspires to regain his support base.

Therefore, it is the need of the hour that the Aam Aadmi Party presents a set of alternative policies. This must include strengthening public sector institutions, ending corporate loot, solution to the severe unemployment, etc. Economic and social justice needs to be the key agenda for AAP if they want to win the coming elections.