The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) squandered its "impressive victory" in the Delhi Assembly elections because it did not know what to do with it, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said today.
"As far as AAP is concerned, they touched a chord at a particular time and it happens in democracy, and (they) encashed on it and they got a very impressive victory," he said.
"But clearly they did not know what to do with it," Khurshid told reporters who accompanied him on a day-long visit to the Afghan city of Kandahar, where he inaugurated an agricultural university built with Indian assistance.
The problem with AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal is "not the content of what he wanted to do but the manner in which he wanted to do it", he said while responding to questions.
"I think as much as he (Kejriwal) claims to be a votary of democracy, dialogue and discussions in a democracy are just as important as the counting of votes. He got it wrong. He thinks democracy is just the counting of votes," he said.
Kejriwal resigned yesterday after serving as Chief Minister of Delhi for 49 days when he failed to introduce the Jan Lokpal bill in the legislative assembly.
Khurshid described Kejriwal's attempt to introduce the bill as "disastrous".
"Parties that come up with an aggressive agenda – if I may call it that – do have to find some accommodation for the institutional set-up – you just can't wipe everything completely and say I am going to write a new Constitution," he said.
Kejriwal "links everything to the Constitution but he forgets that the rules by which democracy is played are also rules that are sanctified by the Constitution", he said.
"For him to believe that he and three of his lawyer friends know everything that is there to know, I think is also a disaster for democracy...There are a few things which he will now discover," Khurshid said.
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