Aam –Admi & His Party

Like most of us, the Anna Hazare’s fast last year & the response to it was a great moment of déjà-vu.  Emergence of the political party as a fall out of this was viewed with interest & hope of a new style of politics not seen in this Country, at least after the Janata experiment in the late ‘70s.

Let me admit that at that point, I like all others was euphorically supported this formation. The euphoria led to the AAP winning a stunning election in the Delhi state elections.

In the build up to the formation of the party and ending with the election and then forming of its government lays an interesting path.

When the Anna fast started, except for Anna Hazare, Swami Agnivesh, Kiran Bedi & the Bhushan father & son duo, none others were known names including that of Arvind Kejriwal, Sisodia etc.  

 By the time the fast ended, with the Agnivesh expose thrown in between started the emergence of Arvind Kejriwal, regularly talking to the press along with Prashant Bhushan, with question marks of “Kejriwal who” on everyone’s mind. A slow build up of answers started coming up in the media to this question, more intensely so after the Agnivesh fiasco. The Aam Admi like me was fed with the information of his IAS-IIT background and the other good details. As the Delhi elections approached, the name of Yogendra Yadav well known to TV news watchers emerged & slowly the name of Prashant Bhushan & Shanti Bhushan started fading out.

When names of candidates were being announced we were introduced to names like Kumar Vishwas & Sisodia who started taking more & more media space. Now, neither Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan nor Yogendra Yadav were part of the candidates for the Delhi elections.

Slowly & steadily it was Arvind Kejriwal who all the way became synonymous with AAP! Rest all faded away in the background till the Government in Delhi was formed with the support of Congress.

It was during this period that one started wondering why Anna judiciously kept away from this. A simpleton as Digvijay Singh calls him? No!! It was that typical Indian dehati wisdom which sensed what was coming. Add to it the silence or ambivalence of Kiran Bedi & the picture becomes clear.

It was the Agnivesh plan ‘B’ that was in action!

Bedi who has enough support for her in the police, with her ears to the ground would have sensed this and passed on the information to Anna. Remember she & Gen. V.K.Singh were in Ralegan when the election & the results were happening.

As the list of corrupt comes out from a man who has already published enough allegations and has so much evidence, one wonders when the real action will happen, if at all it will!! Or are we to witness another Janata fiasco.