NEW DELHI: Though the Congress leadership has announced the end of its partnership with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Haryana and Delhi, it seems to be still going soft on the ruling party of the national Capital. While the anger in the citizenry is tipping over the misgovernance manifested in civic miseries of the ongoing monsoon season, the Congress establishment doesn’t seem to be engaging enough with the people on the issues.
The chore of taking the government to task on the issues has remained limited to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which too has remained restricted in its opposition to the ruling party through press statements and protests inside the corporation house.
One is still to hear about a programme which could have created an impact, all programmes are just with an eye to the social media handles.
Amid the melee, when people pray for safety when they leave home for work, the conversations in the public transports, be it the jam-packed metros or the ramshackle buses, veer around to mourning the demise of Sheila Dikshit and how the city failed to take forward the legacy of development left behind by the late chief minister. This is true for the cabs and the autos too, where both the passengers and the drivers yearn for ‘the good old times’.
Who would meet this aspiration of the people? Congress is best suited today to engage on these lines. Nationally there are positive vibes for it in its traditional vote banks and locally the field is ready to sow seeds to reap a political harvest in the spring of 2025. But then what’s holding it back?
Individually, leaders confide that they are ready to take to the streets but no signals or programmes are forthcoming from the party. They fear that remaining out of sight would probably once again send them out of the mind of the voters.
On coming out of jail, AAP’s second-in-command Manish Sisodia has taken to campaign among people. He took out a padyatra in Greater Kailash constituency around the Independence Day and has followed it up in several other constituencies, where he claimed, “It was an emotional moment for me. I was away from the people for 17 months but there is no let-up in their love for me.”
Sisodia’s thrust, despite his sullied image and the beating his party got in the last Lok Sabha polls, is that the people are with him. Seeing Manish Sisodia drawing traction, the AAP has decided to launch a campaign titled “Kejriwal Ayenge”, telling cadres that their jailed chief minister would be out from prison.
In democracy it’s the people who matter and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is just doing the right thing by connecting with people. The Delhi Congress seems to be reluctant to engage with people the AAP is doing. Why it’s so one doesn’t know.
Those who have followed city’s politics post resurrection of the assembly in 1993, would recall that the change of power in the national Capital has always been preceded by intensive engagement with people. Be it 1998, when Sheila Dikshit came to power or 2013 when Arvind Kejriwal replaced her as Chief Minister, public agitation preceded the assembly elections.
In 1998, Sheila Dikshit as the face of the Congress campaign, managed to ride on the people’s anger regarding the ever spiralling prices of onions and other vegetables. As the agitation moved on the issues of the supply of contaminated mustard oil, poor state of public transport and power cuts got dovetailed. BJP lost miserably despite having won handsomely in the Lok Sabha polls a few months earlier.
Similarly in 2013 Arvind Kejriwal built on people’s anger in the Nirbhaya case adding issues of corruption and putting the icing of free electricity and water supply. Since then he has won twice in 2015 and 2020, distributing the crumbs from the cake he baked in 2013.
Recalling the phrase once used famously by late BJP leader Manohar Parrikar, albeit in a different context, Kejriwal’s cake has now turned into a rancid pickle. But then the Congress should have sufficient stocks to replace AAP on the racks.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice
