Kejriwal’s oath ceremony at Ramlila Maidan
February 14, 2015
It was on 14 February 2014 when Arvind Kejriwal had unceremoniously vacated the chief minister’s chair in a whiff – a decision that had surprised everybody. With a quirk of irony, exactly a year later – on 14 February 2015 – he swears in again as the Chief Minister of Delhi. St. Valentine’s Day has a special significance for the bespectacled leader and his Aam Aadmi Party.
During this intervening period, he and his party have seen it all – the entire vicissitudes of life seems to have been juxtaposed between the two Valentines for them.
For Kejriwal, it indeed would be easier to draw a parallel between the two Valentines – He was at the helm of power on both occasions. Yet, while the last Valentine was like a nightmare since he had to relinquish power that day; this one is a like a dream come true when he re-annexes power and takes oath as Chief Minister in the presence of a large applauding crowd with supreme confidence and absolute command at Delhi’s historic Ramlila Maidan after a spell of ignominy and self-defeating moments.
Time is the great leveller
Time is the great leveller
As they say, Time is the great leveller. Consider how he had to quit last time in the absence of required numbers that could have sustained his government in Delhi. Consider how he inadvertently played into the hands of his adversaries (read the Congress – who supported him to power but showed no compunction in pulling the rug from under his feet when Kejriwal required their support to get his dream Jan Lokpal Billpassed in the Delhi assembly on 14 February, last year. Yet, wasn’t he himself in an unwarranted haste to make things difficult for self and his party? Obviously it was his unilateral decision rather than the Congress’s that had deftly played its cards, to step down as the Chief Minister of Delhi?
For once, it did look like as if the vagaries of decadent politics were beyond his comprehension. His decision to field 432 candidates in the last summer’s general elections was as surprising as his decision to quit the government in Delhi. He wasn’t in the government then. Besides, he had little cadre support to contest elections at such a large scale. His own decision to jump in the fray against his much formidable opponent and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi than to contest from his own stronghold, New Delhi, meant his party lost at least one assured seat in the Lok Sabha!
That the AAP could still win four Lok Sabha seats – all from Punjab – was a surprise much like the one the party had sprung by winning an unexpected 28 seats in the 2013 Delhi assembly elections.
Kejriwal indeed was fighting wars on many fronts. He looked an opportunist who left Delhi in a limbo in quest of greener pasture and possibly a Prime Ministerial post. The sobriquet “bhagora” (one who ran away from responsibilities) had stuck to him. His own men deserted him calling him an autocrat. A few prominent faces (read Yogendra Yadav and Shanti Bhushan), which still remained with him, attacked him for his style of functioning. As if these developments were not enough, he had the vultures on the prowl, trying to seize every opportunity to hack his party.
As they say, adversity is the true test of a man’s character. Kejriwal withstood all challenges with exemplary resoluteness. He countered poaching efforts with sting operations. He kept applying pressure on Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor for the dissolution of the state assembly. Such moves ensured that his flock of AAP legislators remained clubbed together.
Kejriwal learnt from his mistakes
No doubt Kejriwal learnt from his mistakes. He realised the biggest reason for the AAP’s fall was his decision to quit as the CM. His calculations of stepping down on a high moral pedestal to garner public sympathy before the general elections had failed miserably. It needed immediate redressal and so he apologised publicly – “We made a mistake, didn’t commit a crime. Insaan hai, galti ho jaati hai (It’s human to make mistakes).”
He realised the need to rebuild his party and planned meticulously ways to consolidate the AAP’s base in Delhi. He decided to focus solely on Delhi and avoided the temptation of trying his and his party’s luck in unknown and untested territories such as Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir that went to assembly polls after the general elections. He adopted more conventional methods by launching the party’s youth and student wings in the city- state well in time before the Delhi assembly elections.
Indeed he proved to be a quick learner and by the time when election was declared in Delhi, his campaign was already half way through with a carefully crafted catchphrase – “Paanch Saal Kejriwal” (loosely translated as vote Kejriwal for the next five years of stable government in Delhi).
People have short memories and Time is a great healer. Kejriwal’s efforts paid off. The election results and his thumping win proved that he had gained enough ground to regain the love of the people. So to take oath publicly on the Valentine’s Day did make a case.
Yet who knows it better than Kejriwal himself, the subtle intricacies of the Valentine’s Day? After all, isn’t it all about love’s labour’s lost?
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