Delhi elections: How Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP changed over the years

Led by anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare, a movement called India Against Corruption (IAC) was launched in April 2011 to press upon the then Congress-led UPA government of Manmohan Singh to implement the Jan Lokpal Bill.

Besides Kejriwal, who was popular as an RTI activist, IAC comprised activists from different walks of life.

They included former Union law minister Shanti Bhushan, his son and senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, former Supreme Court judge Santosh Hegde, Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Asian marathon winner 1992 Sunita Godara, Swami Agniwesh, Baba Ramdev, Union minister General (retired) VK Singh, PV Rajagopal, ‘waterman’ Rajinder Singh, activist Medha Patkar, RTI activist from Assam Akhil Gogoi, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh and BJP leader Shazia Ilmi.

Yielding to the pressure exerted by 'civil society’, as IAC was informally called, the UPA government formed a Joint Drafting Committee (JDC) in April 2011. It had five members each from the government and IAC.

The JDC was headed by then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. The other representatives from the government were former home minister P Chidambaram, former law minister Veerappa Moily, former telecom minister Kapil Sibal and former water resources minister Salman Khurshid.

The IAC side comprised Shanti Bhushan, who was the JDC co-chairman, Anna Hazare, Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan and Kejriwal. This group was loosely called Team Anna.

With the government failing to legislate a law on Jan Lokpal, Anna Hazare decided to launch a hunger strike from August 16, 2011. He was arrested on the same day along with Kejriwal.

However, Hazare then launched a 13-day hunger strike, first from Tihar Jail and later, on his release, in Ramlila Maidan. He broke the fast only after the Manmohan Singh government initiated debate on legislating Jan Lokpal Bill.

Team Anna undertook agitations on several occasions thereafter to protest the government’s failure to legislate Jan Lokpal Bill.

By then some leaders such as Baba Ramdev, Swami Agniwesh and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had left IAC due to internal differences.

In August 2012, IAC split over the issue of forming a political party. IAC members such as Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi and Santosh Hegde were against any such move.

On the other hand, Kejriwal, Sisodia, the Bhushans, Kumar Vishwas and others were in favour of forming a political party with a mission to change Indian politics and free it of corruption.

The two groups parted ways. In September 2012, Anna Hazare announced the dissolution of Team Anna. Later that year, AAP was formed with Kejriwal as its convener.

While Kejriwal said he considered Hazare as a father figure, the latter asked him not to use his name or photograph in elections.

Meanwhile, some other prominent members joined Kejriwal. They included political commentator Yogendra Yadav, former JNU professor Anand Kumar, activist Ajit Jha, former journalists Shazia Ilmi, Ashutosh, Ashish Khetan, Jarnail Singh, Nagendar Sharma and Dipak Bajpai, former MLAs Kapil Mishra and Alka Lamba, former Central Information Commissioner (CIC) Shailesh Gandhi, Delhi minister Gopal Rai, Bollywood music director Vishal Dadlani and activist Mayank Gandhi.

AAP contested the December 2013 election and came second by winning 28 of the 70 assembly seats. BJP was at the top with 31. Congress, which had won 43 seats in the 2008 assembly election, was reduced to just eight seats.

AAP formed the government on December 28, 2013 with the support of Congress. However, the government lasted just 49 days and Kejriwal resigned in February 2014.

While President’s Rule was imposed in Delhi, AAP decided to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha elections with maximum participation.

But AAP’s performance was a disaster. Out of the 434 seats it contested, it won only four - all of them from Punjab. Kejriwal himself suffered a humiliating defeat against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi.

In Punjab, AAP suspended two of its MPs - Harinder Singh Khalsa from Fatehgarh Sahib and Dharamvir Gandhi from Patiala - for anti-party activities. Founding state unit chief Succha Singh Chotepur was also expelled from the party later.

Out of the 40 seats AAP contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, it won just one - that of Bhagwant Mann.

The 2014 Lok Sabha election fallout began with Shazia Ilmi, who lost from Ghaziabad, resigning soon after results were announced on May 16. She alleged that AAP was being run by a coterie and lacked internal democracy.

AAP, however, git its act together for the 2015 February Delhi assembly election. It created a record by winning 67 seats while BJP was victorious on just three. Congress for the first time ever failed to open its account.

Kejriwal, who resigned on February 14, 2014 in his first stint as Delhi chief minister, took oath on February 14, 2015.

However, the record-breaking performance of AAP also saw a large number of exits. Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and others alleged that Kejriwal was behaving like a “supreme leader” and resorting to “cult politics”.

On the other hand, AAP’s disciplinary committee recommended expulsion of Bhushan and Yadav besides Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha in April.It alleged that these leaders indulged in “anti-party activities” and crossed all limits in hatching conspiracy against the party during the assembly election.

This was just the beginning of exits from AAP.

Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav subsequently formed a new party - Swaraj India.

Thereafter, AAP saw a number of resignations and criticisms by its senior leaders.

In a letter to Kejriwal in September 2015, former CIC Shailesh Gandhi alleged that the Delhi government did not appear to have improved on the transparency score or adherence to RTI. He also alleged that Kejriwal had done nothing to curb corruption.

AAP received a major jolt after poet Kumar Vishwas, one of the founding members of the party, disagreed with Kejriwal over the surgical strike conducted by the Indian Army in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Vishwas opposed Kejriwal, who demanded proofs of the strikes. This created a rift between the two. The January 2018 Rajya Sabha election saw relations between the two getting worse. Vishwas did not take lightly to being ignored for the Rajya Sabha seat.

AAP instead chose Sanjay Singh, Narain Dass Gupta and Sushil Gupta for the Upper House candidature.

Meanwhile, Vishwas is now one of the most vociferous critics of Kejriwal. On January 21, he took a dig at the Delhi chief minister for using the word “family” for the candidates of his New Delhi assembly seat.

He wrote on Twitter: “Will you behave like a conspiring murderer with this family in the same manner as you did with Anna Hazare whom you had called father, Yogendra Yadav whom you had called elder brother and a friend whom you had called a younger brother? At least leave using words such as family, culture and concern."

In February 2018, Mayank Gandhi, one of the founders of AAP, released a book ‘AAP and Down’ in the national capital. He alleged that Kejriwal had become “ruthless and cold-blooded” to garner votes.

On August 15, 2018, another senior leader Ashutosh resigned from the party citing strictly personal reasons. Within a week of his resignation, another journalist-turned-politician Ashish Khetan too quit the party. He also cited personal reasons behind his decision.

Besides Kumar Vishwas, the other vocal critic of Kejriwal was Kapil Mishra. Though he won on AAP ticket, he soon turned out to be Kejriwal’s dissenter. He was suspended from the party and is now contesting the upcoming assembly election on a BJP ticket.

One more AAP MLA, Alka Lamba, quit the party and returned to Congress which has fielded her from her traditional seat of Chandni Chowk.

Though a large number of old associates and colleagues have parted ways with Kejriwal, there are a handful who are still sticking by him. They include Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Gopal Rai, Atishi Marlena, Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal, Raghav Chadha, Jarnail Singh, Arvind Kejriwal’s media adviser Nagendar Sharma and Dipak Bajpai.