As anyone who has read my columns recently would know, I was an early supporter of AAP, long before even the Delhi elections. And, of course, after that magic-show, like so many others, I got swept along with stars in my eyes, unable to see the most obvious structural limitations, even when they were pointed out to me by others who shared the broad sentiment.
Of course, I had seen?indeed, written about?a few of the major issues. The complete failure of internal communication made it difficult for believers on the ground to explain actions in (including the resignation from) Delhi. There was no real diversity in the brains trust, which made it easy to paint the AAP as a left-wing anarchist grouping. And, of course, the shift to the national platform, which showed up the AAP?s not unexpected organisational weakness.
Despite all this, the AAP can probably claim a reasonably successful election?2% of the popular vote (I was hoping for 5-6%) and four seats (BJP got only two in its maiden election). Importantly, the four seats were all in Punjab where, I heard yesterday from a gentleman from Patiala, the AAP is still hot, hot, hot!
Interestingly, dozens of people who voted for Modi have been asking me what the AAP?s plan is. They all feel that the essence of the AAP is essential and needs to be nurtured as many of the issues it has raised?no criminality in politics, using only clean, accounted money in elections?are critical and citizens need to maintain continuous pressure on existing political formations to prevent the weeds of corruption, which have hardly yet withered away, from resurfacing to strangle the country.
Mr Modi has a clean slate and appears to have the right attitude on all this, but he needs to recognise that good governance is as much a priority as setting the economy right. The law minister and home minister need to put women safety on a war footing; the education minister needs to articulate a view that intolerance is not acceptable?perhaps the government should organise a celebratory retrospective of paintings by MF Husain as a signal of its beliefs.
But all this is moot. The question is what is the AAP going to do? There is a national conclave in Delhi from June 6 to 8 and, as an aam aadmi myself, which qualifies me, in some senses, as chairman of the AAP, I propose:
(a) the national council be doubled in size, with the new members being AAP candidates who won the largest number of votes;
(b) the operations of the AAP be outsourced to an entity created out of AAP members and managed by an experienced professional?Bala, ex-Infosys, and who ran as a candidate in Bangalore, would make a great MD;
(c) all candidates who ran under the AAP banner and are still with the AAP take a leaf out of Meera Sanyal?s book and focus on development work in their constituencies; in time, each could even become shadow MPs and provide support or admonishment, as needed, to the existing MPs; and
(d) Arvind should take a long holiday, start wearing more brightly coloured clothes and meet me for a drink.
The author is CEO of Mecklai Financial