Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal will decide the future of the alliance with the Congress when he is released from prison, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh has told The Telegraph.
Kejriwal, Delhi chief minister, has been in jail since March awaiting trial relating to alleged corruption in his government’s now scrapped excise policy.
A brief period of bail for him to campaign in the general election didn’t do much for the party in Delhi where, despite the alliance with the Congress, it failed to break the BJP’s decade-old hold over all seven seats.
The AAP won three seats — all from Punjab, which has 17 seats. It fought the polls there on its own but failed to capitalise on its overwhelming majority in the state’s Assembly.
In Haryana, where the party aligned with Congress, top leaders of both allies have said they are confident about contesting the upcoming Assembly polls there on their own.
"Our national convener is in jail. We can take a decision only after his release. It will take time to decide upon an alliance or no alliance or anything else," Singh, a member of the AAP political affairs committee, told this newspaper.
"Even when we had differences with the Congress, we cornered the government in Parliament. That will continue."
A socialist activist from Uttar Pradesh and founding member of the AAP, Singh has claimed over the past week that the Narendra Modi government would not last even a year. He has said the NDA allies should insist on the Speaker’s post, lest the BJP misuse the chair to allow their MPs to defect.
Asked what role the AAP would play in the hypothetical formation of a new government, he replied: "The big players like Congress, Trinamool, SP and DMK will have a greater role in the formation of an alternative government."
Besides its three Lok Sabha MPs, the AAP has 10 members in the Rajya Sabha. Five of them, including cricketer Harbhajan Singh, are eminent people from the fields of industry, sports and spirituality. They have largely kept off political activities.
Another Rajya Sabha MP — firebrand women’s leader Swati Maliwal —is now persona non grata for the party after going public with her complaint of assault against Kejriwal’s now-jailed aide Bibhav Kumar.
The BJP successfully used the incident to erode sympathy for Kejriwal during the poll campaign, and the AAP’s allies were embarrassed as well.
Singh had been the first AAP leader to admit that Maliwal had been assaulted and assert that the party stood with her. However, the party quickly changed its stand after she cooperated with the police, who eventually arrested Kumar.
"There are two sides to the story…. As time goes by, everything will become clear (through) investigation, and in court," Singh said on Saturday.
On the party’s failure to convert the sympathy for a jailed chief minister into votes, he said: "The sympathy for Arvind Kejriwal is there and was seen in the elections as well. But that could not bring us victory because we fought under difficult circumstances, with our top leaders in jail and our MLAs and ministers getting notices (from probe agencies) every day."
He added: "When people vote for us (in the Delhi Assembly polls that the AAP has repeatedly swept), they evaluate our work. At the national level, we have never been in government. They did not see us in that light (of a potential ruling party at the Centre)."
AAP leaders have held town hall meetings with party members after the polls. Sources said Kejriwal had pulled up Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, when they met in jail on Wednesday, for the party’s Punjab leaders losing touch with their cadre.
But can the party survive the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls (early next year) if Kejriwal fails to get bail?
"I think we all feel a greater sense of responsibility after he was arrested. But a leader is a leader and many things are affected if he is in jail," Singh said. "The diligence of our activists and their dedication to the party have not decreased at all."
He added: "His messages are given to everyone through (his wife) Sunita Kejriwal because they speak on the phone every day, which is legally allowed. At the organisation level and in the government, everyone is fulfilling their responsibilities well."
Kejriwal continues to hold the posts of party convener and Delhi chief minister even after being arrested.
Singh said his party’s immediate priorities in Parliament are to hold the Centre to account for the repeated terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and the withholding of Assembly elections there, the NEET fiasco and alleged question paper leaks, and the short-term and long-term heat-wave mitigation measures.
He also plans to personally focus on the plight of undertrials in Indian jails.
