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How Arvind Kejriwal became the quintessential modern-day Indian politician

Can Arvind Kejriwal continue his upward rise in Indian politics? Or will reality catch up with him?

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“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything”. Chuck Palahniuk’s immortal lines from the cult classic book and movie Fight Club might may well have been written for Arvind Kejriwal, India’s quintessential modern-day politician who has emerged as PM Modi’s biggest bete noir. On a day when he turns 48, we analyse how an ex-IITian and administrator and NGO activist became one of modern Indian’s most recognisable politician.

At the end of 2014, when Arvind Kejriwal and AAP’s plan to challenge the BJP nationally and Modi personally in Varanasi, crashed spectacularly, it appeared that AAP’s fairytale run in Indian politics was over. It seemed like Kejriwal’s voters and the rest of the nation, wasn’t willing to forgive him for his 49-day betrayal as AAP crashed and burned in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections managing a meagre 4 out of the 432 seats that it contested.

But Kejriwal and his party regrouped, focussing only on Delhi and won a mind-boggling 67 out of 70 seats in the 2015 Assembly Elections with BJP winning the other three and Congress ending up with a big duck. In the 2015 elections, Kejriwal got better of fellow India Against Corruption alumni Kiran Bedi. Modi-Shah duo propped up ex-IPS officer Bedi as a last-ditch move but it backfired spectacularly. It must be said that in retrospect, AAP were lucky that the BJP-led Centre delayed the Delhi elections. Had it been carried out any time soon after or together with the 2014 Lok Sabha election, it's likely that the Modi wave could've swept the BJP into power. After all, BJP did win all 7 constituencies in the NCT region in 2014. 

But the BJP delayed the elections and we all remember how it turned out. Kejriwal became the CM of Delhi for the second time and in two years have earned both brickbats and bouquets for his unconventional style of leadership.  You might not like Arvind Kejriwal, you might think he is way over-the-top or runs AAP like a personal fiefdom, but you’d have to extremely blindsided if you can’t admit that he has created a huge disruption in Indian politics.

Kejriwal’s rise can be attributed to several happy (or unhappy) coincidences and also an amazing ability to make sure the spotlight is fixated on him, using the media’s hunger for TRPs.

Delhi, by its sheer size and the powers that the government hold is just an over glorified municipality. However, most mainstream media organisations are NCR based. It means that anything that happens in Delhi gets undue coverage. Secondly, Kejriwal’s time in politics has also coincided with explosion of politics on social media, and AAP has brilliantly used Twitter and other social media to always stay in the news and public consciousness.  

With his middle-class dressing sense (which he refuses to change even for visiting dignitaries like the French president Hollande), thick muffler et all Kejriwal has managed to create a unique brand image in modern-day politics.

Thanks to his constant posturing, whether it’s the odd-even scheme, his film reviews or claiming the PM will murder him, he has managed to dominate the airwaves from the time he became CM. His Twitter timeline is filled with retweets of every negative comment ever written about Modi or BJP often with the disclaimer ‘Shocking, if true’.

He has also managed to needle the BJP turning up in every site where it has been deemed that BJP or RSS or Hindutva have been guilty of atrocities, whether it’s Una, HCU or Dadri.

But how long can AAP and Kejriwal last?

Of course, the challenges ahead are considerable. The alacrity with which the Delhi police move to crack down on AAP leaders perceived to be on the wrong side of the law is certainly alarming, as is their constant battle with the administration.

Despite claims from AAP and its supporters that the Centre doesn’t let them function, at times it appears that it doesn’t want to function without being in the news. One also wonders if Kejriwal's constant thundering will result in diminishing returns (like the boy who cried ‘Wolf’), because to the neutral listener, constant thundering can be extremely tiresome.

There’s also the problem of a clear-cut ideology. AAP’s support base is similar to Congress and both of them have the same problem, the lack of a raison d'etre as a political party.

While the Congress seems to exist to pay fealty to the Nehru-Gandhi family and can’t seem to move beyond them, the Aam Aadmi Party which started off on an anti-corruption plank, is now held together by Arvind Kejriwal’s charisma and ability to be in the news. 

Like other regional leaders who are the be-all and end-all of their parties including Nitish Kumar, Mamata Banerjee and J Jayalalithaa, AAP is Arvind. The problem with this one-lord approach is that if Arvind Kejriwal fails, then so does the party. Other major challenges include the dictator tag Kejriwal has earned from his detractors, where anyone who seems to disagree with him is shown the door.

BJP leader Taran Chugh had claimed that AAP was becoming a ‘party for comedians without an ideology’ when Navjot Singh Sidhu resigned from Rajya Sabha. Chugh’s claim shows the seriousness with which BJP is treating the rise of AAP. 

The constant political fights between BJP and AAP over every issue also shows that BJP is treating AAP more like the main opposition party than the Congress in some states. As of now, AAP seems to have trained its guns on Punjab 2017 and also look to upset the established order in Goa and Gujarat, all of which are BJP-ruled states.

It’s fair to say that AAP that exists now is very different from the party that was launched in 2013. At times, we tend to judge it more harshly than we’d other political parties. For example, we pull up AAP for wasting money on ads when it’s the norm for almost every party, but perhaps because AAP promised to be different, we get angrier when we see them pull off political tricks that are used by other parties.

Of course AAP realises that to be a serious national player, they will have to win a ful-fledged state, whether its Punjab, Goa or Gujarat and cannot hope to become restricted in Delhi where its powers are seriously limited. Will Kejriwal be able to do it? Will he form a coalition with like-minded allies to take on the NDA?  We will have to wait and watch. But there’s one fact that can’t be taken way.

No matter how much we get annoyed by his constant thundering, the fact remains that Arvind Kejriwal has changed Indian politics, just not in the way he promised. To paraphrase, Mr Kejriwal, it is true. 

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