In October 2021, Arvind Kejriwal, the Chief Minister of Delhi, made a pilgrimage to Ayodhya. There, with a large ‘tikka’ firmly planted on his forehead, Kejriwal declared — “I was fortunate that I got the chance to bow before Ram Lalla and I wish everyone must get this chance. Whatever capability I have, I will use that to make more and more people have ‘darshan’ here”.
The steady transformation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader was complete. Kejriwal can no longer be accused of “soft Hindutva”. He has slowly and steadily mainstreamed it, normalising the “Hindu way of life” through very public displays of his religious beliefs.
Only weeks earlier, he and his wife performed Ganesh puja on the banks of the Yamuna, which was telecast live on social media and news channels. Till now, live telecasts of aartis and pujas had been a hallmark of the BJP. As Kejriwal tries to expand the AAP’s footprint in Punjab, Goa, UP and Uttarakhand in the upcoming state elections, he knows that appealing to the majority vote may be his best shot. But it may come at a heavy price.
A completely different man
When Arvind Kejriwal started out in politics only a decade ago, he was a completely different man. After graduating from IIT Kharagpur, he began his career as a bureaucrat in the income tax department and went on to become a passionate activist for the Right to Information or RTI.
His graph began to rise rapidly as he joined Anna Hazare’s agitation for a Lokpal, loudly protesting against corruption under the UPA 2 government. The movement was a big success and played a big role in the eventual downfall of the Congress lead government. Kejriwal was soon called an “anarchist”. Protest and dharna defined his politics back then. Even when he became Delhi’s Chief Minister the first time round, he sat on protests in the streets.
Demanding full statehood for Delhi, he frequently took on the centre’s appointed Lieutenant Governor or LG as an ugly power tussle played out in full public view. Kejriwal was also unhinged in his use of language back then. He attacked Prime Minister Modi all the time, sometimes with the use of questionable language.
But in the run up to 2020 Delhi election, Kejriwal changed. From an “anarchist” to an “able administrator”, he was adopting a more measured tone in his politics as he sought an image makeover. Suddenly, the attacks stopped. The focus shifted to governance where the AAP has seen genuine successes such as in education, electricity and mohalla clinics.
That governance record is what helped Kejriwal come back with another big majority in 2020 despite a very polarising campaign lead by the BJP.
The political changeover
It also meant that as a politician, he decided to keep quiet on some of the most divisive and troubling issues confronted by citizens. As Delhi witnessed massive protests at Shaheen Bagh over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act or the CAA, Kejriwal avoided talking about it as much as he could.
In fact, he was very upset when I pressed him on the CAA repeatedly during our last interview in January 2020, angrily storming out at the very end and unfollowing me on Twitter.
The signs of this transformation had come much earlier. When the BJP lead government hollowed out Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir on Aug. 5, 2019 and downgraded the state to a Union Territory, Kejriwal was among the first political leaders to vocally support the move.
For a politician who has waged a relentless campaign for Delhi’s full statehood, supporting the downgrading of J&K state was called out by many as not just hypocritical but a sign that he was pandering to a very different vote bank now.
Fast forward to 2022. The only pan India opposition party, the Congress, is in decline. And so regional parties like Mamata Bannerjee’s Trinamool Congress and the AAP are trying to expand nationally. Both Mamata and Kejriwal are gritty leaders who have taken the fight to the BJP and won handsomely on their home turf.
It is not going to be easy but the AAP sniffs a serious chance in Punjab this time. In the last election in the state in 2017, Kejriwal’s party debuted with plenty of hype but ended up performing far below their own expectations. This time, they seem to be better prepared, having worked hard on the ground to bring different factions within together while infighting in the Congress and a weakened Akali Dal may also help them.
AAP is hoping to make a dent in other states and has already expressed its intention to contest in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, where elections are due later this year. The party is already making some inroads in the urban pockets of Gujarat.
For Kejriwal, changing his brand of politics has helped expand his base. Many of those who supported him in the past feel disappointed that political voices speaking strongly for a secular, democratic India, as he once did, have now been drowned out by the real politik of Hindutva.
Will that be enough to challenge the BJP nationally? We don’t know, but it is sad that speaking up for what is right and speaking up for minorities is not seen as politically viable anymore.
