Opinion: "Mufflerman" Kejriwal Can't Muffle Questions On His Ethics

"Mufflerman" - Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal inspired this sobriquet a decade ago as an ode to his "common man" relatability - has not been able to muffle the questions on ethics and probity arising out of recent developments.

In addition, his political trapeze act of showing support when Nitish Kumar or other anti-BJP unity planners meet him stands somewhat exposed because of his party's stance on the Karnataka election and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha by-poll.

AAP, a by-product of the 2012 Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption movement (which hastened the decline of Congress as India's ruling party) is now mired in charges of corruption. Its Deputy Chief Minister in Delhi, Manish Sisodia, and his former cabinet colleague, Satyendra Jain, are in Tihar Jail over corruption allegations and their bail requests have repeatedly been rejected.

Probe agencies have described Kejriwal as the mastermind of the excise policy that was implemented and later withdrawn hastily by the Delhi government. There are indications that Punjab's AAP regime implemented the same policy later.

Kejriwal is also entangled in a controversy over Rs 44.78 crore allegedly spent on the renovation (a new palatial bungalow has emerged) of his official residence, 6 Flag Staff Road in Delhi's Civil Lines. A retired chief secretary of Delhi pointed out in a TV interview that a new house could have been bought in a posh Delhi colony for the same amount. The renovation funds, which apparently included the cost of importing marble from Vietnam, were sanctioned at the height of the Covid pandemic. AAP has not denied the amounts involved but has in retaliation questioned the money being spent on building the new Prime Minister's House complex which is part of New Delhi's Central Vista redevelopment project.

Details have been pouring out-apparently, funds were sanctioned in five tranches for repair and renovation while a bungalow, referred to by AAP critics as "Sheeshmahal", was built. There are 72 government staff and aides at the Chief Minister's residence, apart from Kejriwal, his wife, two children and both parents (thus seven "sahayaks" are deployed per head) - a far cry from austerity and simple living.

In an election affidavit submitted on June 7, 2013, Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP candidates had sworn to shun VIP trappings. A decade later, Kejriwal not only has his Delhi Police posse but even Punjab Police guards swarm around him in the national capital (Delhi Police is controlled by the Union Home Ministry, Punjab cops are under the Bhagwant Mann government). A Chief Minister is entitled to comfortable residential quarters and trappings of power commensurate with his office. Disclosures have proved that the Kejriwal dispensation is no different from that of other parties, belying AAP's USP.

The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, whose acrimony with the National Capital Territory's elected government is well known, has asked for details from Chief Secretary. The fact that the details tumbled out prior to the Lt Governor's query raises the question - were details leaked by sources within AAP? Since Manish Sisodia's incineration, ambitions have been kindled in AAP's top echelons. Many see the opportunity to emerge as Number Two (or, if Kejriwal too comes under a cloud, the Numero Uno) position in the party.

Apart from the issues pertaining to ethics and probity, Kejriwal's political unpredictability is the proverbial bull in the China Shop of Nitish Kumar's anti-BJP opposition unity bid. Nitish Kumar has announced that as desired by Mamata Banerjee, when he recently met her along with Tejaswi Yadav in Kolkata, he will call a meeting of opposition parties soon after the Karnataka results to forge an understanding for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Mamata Banerjee, who had opposed the Patna-centred Jayaprakash Narain-led movement in the mid-1970s, told Nitish Kumar, who is a product of that movement, that "Patna ought to take the lead once again". Mamata Banerjee had shot to prominence as a 19-year-old Congress student activist in 1975 when she jumped on the bonnet of a car in which JP was traveling on a visit to Calcutta (now Kolkata). She was protesting against his leadership of the movement against Indira Gandhi, which eventually led to the Janata regime of 1977.

Over the past 47 years, Mamata seems to have revised her views (the JP event had catapulted her to the vanguard of the Congress youth movement). Nitish Kumar seems happy to ignore her 1975 belligerency as both now have a common objective - of fighting the phenomenal rise of the BJP under Narendra Modi.

With a year to the election to the 18th Lok Sabha, an attempt to dislodge the ruling party is axiomatic. Nitish Kumar began his quest for unity on April 12 by meeting Congress's Mallikarjun Kharge at his Delhi residence, where he bowed while shaking hands with Rahul Gandhi. Later that day he met with AAP's Arvind Kejriwal. A day later, Kejriwal sent his Rajya Sabha leader, Sanjay Singh, to meet with Nitish Kumar and fine-tune the discussions.

Mamata's newfound reverence for the JP movement is perhaps indicative of her credentials as a player in the "Congress-mukt Bharat" paradigm - a stream of thought first enunciated by Modi's BJP but often shared by Didi's Trinamool Congress as also by AAP, and the Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (formerly TRS).

Most other parties, especially Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United (JDU), Sharad Pawar's NCP, MK Stalin's DMK, Lalu Yadav's RJD, Hemant Soren's JMM, and even CPI(M) - its rivalry with Congress in Kerala notwithstanding - do not share this antipathy towards the Congress and insist that unity against the BJP cannot be forged sans the Grand Old Party.

In the middle of these unity moves, AAP decided to put up 168 candidates for polls to Karnataka's 224-member assembly on May 10. Opinion polls indicate that the Congress has an edge, and the ruling BJP may be on the back foot. (These surveys were conducted prior to the Modi-Amit Shah Blitzkrieg and the announcement of BJP's poll manifesto.) The AAP-Congress rivalry has perhaps been more effective than the BJP's acrimony for the Grand Old Party in a bid for "Congress-mukt" scenario. Wherever AAP has picked up votes, there has been attrition in the Congress's vote share.

The Karnataka bid by AAP is part of a plan crafted by the party's poll strategist Sandeep Pathak, who has been made a Rajya Sabha MP after his campaign plan succeeded in Punjab (as well as Delhi, earlier).

AAP being declared as a national party by the Election Commission was prompted by a petition filed by the party's Karnataka convenor Prithvi Reddy before the High Court in Bengaluru after the Gujarat polls, where AAP's 12% votes (at the cost of the Congress's vote share) qualified the party. (BJP's votes have increased by four per cent in Gujarat).

The Karnataka High Court set April 13 as a deadline for the Election Commission, which announced AAP's new status a day before.

AAP, which is the only party other than the BJP and Congress to have more than one chief minister, seeks to carve a national niche. This ambition can only be achieved by the "Congress mukt" strategy-which is at variance with Nitish Kumar's game plan.

Sandeep Pathak has announced that from June, AAP will launch a relentless effort for the elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh - all states where the Congress is the BJP's direct rival. The Congress had won all three in 2018, losing Madhya Pradesh midway as Jyotiraditya Scindia went to the BJP with 22 MLAs.

AAP has no similar plan for Telangana, where polls are due around the same time. Apparently, AAP wants to confront the Congress while winking at powerful regional parties where they are in power - K Chandrasekhar Rao's Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi falls in that category.

The 168 candidates fielded by AAP in Karnataka include a powerful politician, Jagdish Sagar, who is contesting against Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge's son, Priyank, the sitting third-term MLA from Chittupur. Junior Kharge's winning margins have declined over the years and in the last poll he had scraped through. The presence of a strong challenger at Chittupur takes AAP's threat right to the doorsteps of the Congress president. This, when Kharge was the very first politician to telephone Kejriwal to empathize after he was summoned by CBI in the Delhi liquor policy case.

Apart from Karnataka, AAP will also challenge Congress in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha byelection, necessitated by the death of Congress MP Santokh Chaudhary while participating in Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra in the bitter cold. The Congress has fielded his widow, Karamjit Kaur. AAP has put up Sushil Rinku, a former Congress MLA who lost to AAP's Sheetal Angural in the last elections. If the Nitish Kumar-led opposition unity bid was to be effective, the parties approached by him ought to have shown the courtesy of letting the Congress make a successful bid to retain a Lok Sabha seat it had to vacate due to a death.

The Karnataka results on May 13 will show where the Congress stands in the opposition pantheon. AAP's conduct in the Karnataka and Jalandhar polls indicates that whatever the outcome, Congress's acceptance will be a stumbling block in any unity effort.

(Shubhabrata Bhattacharya is a retired Editor and a public affairs commentator.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.