The support garnered by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar speaks volumes about how political parties are reorienting themselves to the BJP juggernaut. From fighting the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on an anti-BJP, anti-Congress strategy, these parties appear to have realised that the bigger political threat comes from the BJP. Interestingly, these three leaders have not turned to the Congress, but to the AAP. It is noteworthy that Mamata who hails from a Congress tradition, Nitish, who is a Lohiaite socialist, and Karat, who frowns at diversions from “ideological” lines, have identified AAP as a credible alternative to check the BJP in Delhi. Their newfound affinity for AAP, not present either during the Anna Hazare movement, the 2013 Delhi assembly elections or the 2014 general elections, is also driven by their political compulsions.

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Mamata is facing the heat in the Saradha chit fund scam in which several of her associates are implicated. The Bengal leader has accused the central government of influencing the CBI probe but found little sympathy. Nitish ended a two-decade-old fruitful relationship with the BJP, the junior partner in the alliance, over his aversion to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, only to find the BJP turn this “betrayal” to its advantage. Nitish’s political fortunes have since ebbed forcing him into a face-saving alliance with arch-rival Lalu Prasad Yadav and the Congress. West Bengal is seeing the curious phenomenon of CPI(M) cadres deserting the Leftist party and making a rightward shift to the BJP. All these parties have now realised that the BJP’s nationwide expansion poses an existential threat to them and new strategies and linkages are needed to counter it.

But it would be a mistake to view this support for AAP merely from the prism of the survival of a clutch of parties that promised much but delivered little. What the AAP has done to earn this support from three different streams of political thought also merits attention. The AAP has brought into politics a section of civil society that had steered clear of politics or failed to fit into conventional politics. From people in their twenties to the sixties, individuals hailing from at least three generations have entered into active politics, through AAP. With the Indian National Congress jaded and showing more commitment to dynastic politics than the causes which endeared it to the citizen, the AAP has occupied a position in the national imagination once occupied by the Congress. Whether it be AAP’s pursuit of pro-poor “populist” bijli-paani-makaan policies, or its commitment to secularism, the party has clearly appropriated the Congress’ political space, at least in Delhi. Its rhetoric on anti-corruption, service delivery as well as the dharnas have created for it a new urban constituency of the less affluent. 

The challenge for the AAP, or the Left, JD(U), Trinamool, or for that matter the BJP and the Congress, is to recognise the opportunities for a similar brand of politics and the existence of such constituencies in all states.

However, it is another question whether Karat, Mamata or Nitish, who have been generous with their support, are willing to understand or replicate the AAP’s methods. With a negligible political presence in Delhi, the support offered by these leaders is symbolic at one level. Alliances and offers of support merely based on opportunism and expediency will alienate voters in the long run. AAP has created a new political space, but to what extent will its newfound supporters back this incipient space?