Dear AAP, can you get back to governance please?

The AAP government on Tuesday moved a resolution at a special session of the Delhi Assembly against the Centre's notification giving absolute powers to the Lieutenant Governor (LG) on transfer and postings of bureaucrats and restricting the Anti-Corruption Bureau from carrying out probes. This on a day, when one of the prominent AAP members, Adarsh Shastri, suggested ways to impeach the LG from his position. As the mercury soars, Kejriwal's altercation with Delhi LG Najeeb Jung is also reaching a breaking point. And instead of devising a way to diffuse the situation, AAP is hell bent on dragging the situation.

The counter argument asks why AAP should be held guilty when the LG himself is doing the same thing too. However, the point is that the LG is not an elected person and hence doesn't have any direct accountability to the larger electorate. In the AAP-LG fight, there is no doubt that the moral compass of justice is weighed towards AAP because they are the voice of the people, that too an emphatic one. But with great power, come great responsibility. Hence AAP needs to get back to the drawing board to try doing things within their limited scope. 

The fact is that AAP is yet to get away from it's 'opposition mindset'. In the lines of Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, AAP leaders are street fighters. They thrive on confrontation, victim psychosis and paranoia. But as Mamata and people from West Bengal have found out, high decibel rhetoric is no substitute for real ground level work. AAP came on the backdrop of offering an alternative form of government from Narendra Modi's high decibel campaign.

But as of now, there has been nothing new apart from grandstanding. The AAP government in its public meet to mark 100 days has laid out some ambitious plans, especially in the sectors of health, transport and education. But behind the grandiose announcements, the fine print is sketchy, especially about how funds will be generated.

As of now, AAP needs to get its act together. In its first stint, they had a fractured mandate and Kejriwal refused to play footsie with Congress. The people in Delhi responded with a massive mandate the second time around. Kejriwal and co. were well aware of the constitutional limitations while taking over the reigns of Delhi. Hence, it is a little unbecoming and amateurish of them to constantly nag about this. If something really unconstitutional has been done by the LG, Kejriwal is well within his rights to knock the door of the judiciary. The essential beauty of the Indian system is its inherent checks and balances. 

Many believe that this is merely a proxy war between Modi and Kejriwal. But if Kejriwal wants to take on Modi, he needs to first develop an alternative leitmotif of governance. Something he can show when he knocks the door of the electorate next time around. 

Thus, Kejriwal really needs to keep calm and get down to work. It may be a little too late otherwise.