Kejriwal’s arrest: Has BJP over-reached or is it a decisive strike?

In its remand application, the ED has alleged payoffs for the Goa polls from a South group facilitated by Kejriwal, his office and his aides. Also, the fact that Central agencies are overwhelmingly knocking on Opposition doors has not exactly triggered outrage at the popular level even as it has united the Opposition leaders. The fact that all “targets” have corruption complaints is certainly one reason. But how will people react to putting a sitting CM in jail in the middle of polls and watch what should be a level-playing field become an uneven one – eliminating the Opposition figures to the advantage of the ruling party?

Elections remain the heartbeat of India’s democracy, howsoever flawed. And the aam aadmi and aurat still guard their unfettered right to vote as something precious – it enables them to change governments and it is the only time when they get a sense of power over their rulers.

The question being asked by many today is: Why is the BJP doing this – “Jeeti hui baazi kyon daav par laga rahi hai? (Why it is putting a winning game at stake?)”

Putting Kejriwal out of the campaign, which might happen if he remains in custody like his colleagues Manish Sisodia or Sanjay Singh or Satyendra Jain – who have been denied bail so far – might affect three to four seats in Delhi. The BJP has been worried that with the AAP and the Congress forging a seat-sharing arrangement in Delhi, it may not sweep all the seven Lok Sabha seats it got in 2014 and 2019. And the BJP is pulling out all stops to win every seat it can.

Kejriwal is also criticised for what is popularly described as his “my-way-or highway” approach and for not having created a team of equals or the next line of leadership – it is this that the BJP will bank on. And hope that without him around, to plan, strategise, troubleshoot or get the better of opponents, and with other top party leaders in jail, the AAP would be like a house of cards which could collapse quickly or split as some other parties (like the Shiv Sena and the NCP) have done.

It would then not be a force to reckon with in the Delhi Assembly elections due early next year. Of course, much would depend on how the AAP—and the Congress—fare in Delhi in the Lok Sabha elections. And that will be contingent on the extent of public sympathy Kejriwal’s arrest evokes in Delhi and beyond it.

The BJP has chosen to strike against Kejriwal on the issue of corruption—around liquor which the middle class finds problematic—to taint him and undermine what was his USP when he launched the AAP with the avowed objective to cleanse the political system.

Many believe that 2024 isn’t the only thing the BJP is factoring in. It has found him a thorn in its side from the beginning, which has found an echo in the running CM-L-G feuds over the last several years.

The importance of Kejriwal goes beyond the immediate. He has only one-and-a-half states under his belt—Punjab and Delhi, which despite being a Union Territory enjoys immense significance beyond its size, national and international, for being the national capital.

Of course, Kejriwal has a presence in other states like Gujarat and Goa, too, but nothing that can threaten the BJP.

It is Kejriwal’s potential to mount a challenge to the BJP in the long run, heading a soft Hindu party — as reflected, for instance, by his espousal of Hanuman and rendition of the Hanuman chalisa – his understanding that the new-age politics is about doing “people’s kaam” and delivery of services like bijli, paani, schools and mohalla clinics rather than go in for ideological flourishes, a module that is being studied by others — all that would worry the BJP. After all, he had taken his party’s tally in Delhi to an impressive 67 out of 70 seats in 2015, encashing people’s sympathy.

There are few popular movements in independent India which have successfully transformed into a political organisation as the AAP has done and gone on to become a national party in ten years. (The AGP came out of the Assam movement in the early 1980s but remained a state party.)

Over time, AAP has been viewed as the “B team” of the RSS – and that might also worry the BJP brass, which had supported the Anna Hazare movement during its initial heady days of demonstrations at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. The Hazare movement helped Modi move in for the kill.

Travelling through different parts of the country in recent months, be it in Gujarat, Haryana, Goa, Bihar or Karnataka, I have heard many say that they see Kejriwal as a possible alternative to Modi, not immediately, but at a future date.

“Yehan Kejriwal hote toh shayad kuch karte (Kejriwal would have perhaps done something if he had been here),” they would say wistfully. This bush-shirt sporting, OIIT graduate, revenue officer turned politician with no right caste to help him politically, no family legacy, is a marathon runner. His message from prison today, read by his wife Sunita Kejriwal, is conspicuous by the absence of any attack on the PM or the Centre. In fact, it calls on supporters not to “hate” the BJP.

Will his arrest unite the Opposition that much more now, and bring the AAP closer to the Congress at the ground level? Both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have criticised his arrest as “undemocratic”, as have other Opposition leaders. Can Kejriwal become the symbol of the Opposition’s fight against the BJP? The next few days and weeks, as the case makes its way through the courts and parties hit the campaign trail, some of these answers may appear. Even to the big question today: Has the BJP overplayed its hand this time? Or will its calculation, that this was the moment to strike and weaken a principal opponent, pay off? One way or another, Kejriwal’s arrest has introduced a new element in the 2024 elections. Watch this space.

(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 10 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide)