From Kejriwal to Atishi: Yet another political misstep?

New Delhi: When Arvind Kejriwal announced on Sunday that he would resign after 2 days, he regretted not doing so earlier. The resignation after his release from Tihar jail is out of compulsion following the bail conditions laid out by the Supreme Court.

Hours before tendering his resignation to the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Kejriwal appointed his cabinet colleague Atishi Singh Marlena as his successor.

The other option Kejriwal had was to recommend LG to dissolve the Delhi assembly as he had been urging for early elections.

Would Kejriwal repent again for retaining power, the way he did over the delay in resigning?

Even without suggesting remotely that Atishi may meet the fate of Champai Soren, the decision to retain the government and hence power appears to be counterproductive.

If Kejriwal and his party colleagues were real in demanding an early election in Delhi then the only logical situation was to dissolve the Assembly.

Now, if Atishi makes certain mistakes, it may hurt the Aam Aadmi Party in the upcoming elections originally scheduled to be held in February next year.

Kejriwal had resigned after one and a half months during his first term as CM in 2014. Following his resignation, there was an LG rule for about a year until February 2015.

Back then, there was a different Kejriwal. He was more than confident of sweeping Delhi elections after asking for ‘political forgiveness’ from people by swearing in the name of his children that he would not go with Congress ever.

The people of Delhi treated that appeal as genuine and gave Kejriwal a thumping majority.

Cut to today. Kejriwal neither has that confidence courtesy of the 2024 Lok Sabha results nor can he afford to lose power amidst corruption charges.

The people of Delhi ignored Kejriwal’s call to vote and BJP swept all seven seats of Delhi.

One may argue that the Delhiites vote differently in general elections and assembly elections and Kejriwal may be voted to power yet again.

Well, nothing is impossible in politics. But, the era of voting for Modi in general elections and Kejriwal in Assembly elections is gone.

Just like their leaders, the voters of both Kejriwal and Modi are fiercely divided and the number of votes received by all the parties in the 2024 Lok Sabha results is being termed as the real votes for each party.

As of June 4, AAP and Congress jointly had 38,39,495 votes while BJP alone had 48,44,180 votes.

When AAP and Congress fought separately in 2019, AAP received 15,71,000 votes.

If the above numbers remain more or less similar, AAP could face a setback in Delhi given the disillusion of people who are not hardcore believers of Kejriwal.

Unless there is any change in voting pattern or vote percentage, these numbers will likely remain unchanged. Here also, any rise in voting percentage will benefit BJP as the ‘vote bank’ of AAP and Congress voted in full force on May 25. It will be BJP voters who can push the voter turnout up.

Kejriwal who had claimed to have the IB reports on AAP’s victory in various states going to elections in the past must have the IB report from Delhi as well.

And this is why, he chose not to dissolve the government and have six more months while faking his readiness for early elections.

The reason why Kejriwal did not let the Delhi government go is exactly similar to his not resigning earlier for which he already expressed ‘regret’. NewsDrum does not vouch for the integrity of the regret he expressed.

Fear and lack of confidence prevailed over other reasons that led to the stop-gap arrangement with Atishi.

Kejriwal during his interrogation by probe agencies maintained that his close aide Vijay Nayar was reporting to Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj.

As the CM, Atishi is almost secured from any action by central agencies.

In the wake of ongoing investigations, Kejriwal needed to be in power to be on top of the game despite bail conditions. Even if he is barred from connecting witnesses in the Delhi excise policy case, he can avail intangible benefits of being in power in the form of any crucial intel.