Aam Aadmi Party founder-chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took many by surprise last week when he suddenly announced that he was resigning as chief minister. His decision to step down came just two days after he was released on bail from jail in the Delhi liquor policy scam case.
Kejriwal is the most popular face of the fledgling AAP. He has been chief minister of Delhi three times. In 2013, when Kejriwal became Delhi chief minister for the first time, he resigned after only 49 days in power.
On September 21, Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi, a Kejriwal loyalist, was sworn in as Delhi chief minister.
A day before being sworn in as chief minister, Atishi said: “Delhi has only one CM and his name is Arvind Kejriwal.” “Our sole objective will be to make him chief minister again,” she added, indicating that her appointment as chief minister is a stop-gap arrangement till AAP is re-elected in the upcoming assembly elections.
The larger motive behind Kejriwal’s decision to step down as chief minister appears to be to reclaim his “anti-corruption crusader” identity.
AAP was born out of the powerful anti-corruption movement in 2012 against the then-Congress government. Among those who spearheaded that movement, Kejriwal was perceived as an honest bureaucrat-turned-politician, quite different from the typical scam-tainted politicians.
In the ten years that AAP has headed successive governments in Delhi, this clean image has taken a beating as corruption charges have been leveled against Kejriwal and his cabinet ministers.
AAP has consistently maintained that the corruption cases slapped against its leaders are instances of political vendetta by India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government. (The BJP is at the helm of the central government, but it is AAP that rules the Delhi state government.)
The case in which Kejriwal was jailed pertains to alleged irregularities in the Delhi government’s now-repealed 2021 liquor policy. Central investigative agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and several senior AAP ministers on corruption charges and subsequently arrested them.
Over the last six months when he was in jail, the BJP has been demanding Kejriwal’s resignation as chief minister. However, he did not do so.
When he was released last week on regular bail by the Supreme Court, one of the judges questioned the CBI’s motives in arresting Kejriwal. The judge even described the agency’s functioning as a “caged parrot” at the behest of its masters.
Addressing his jubilant supporters soon after his release on bail, Kejriwal asked them whether they believed that he was guilty. He declared he would not occupy the chief minister’s chair until he was vindicated by the “people’s court” i.e. elections. Delhi elections are expected in February 2025. With the upcoming polls in mind, Kejriwal urged the voters to bring back the AAP to power. “Every vote cast will be a certificate of my honesty,” he declared.
Kejriwal is keen to restore his and the AAP party’s “clean” image. He is pitching the upcoming election as a referendum on him and his government’s honesty and integrity.
With Atishi holding the chief minister’s post, Kejriwal has blunted the BJP’s criticism that he is “clinging to power.” Moreover, when going to the voter seeking re-election, he will not be burdened by the tag of “chief minister out on bail.”
Kejriwal is intent on reaching out to the capital’s “aam aadmi” (common man) to reclaim his mantle of being the common man’s representative and AAP being their political party.
Technically, the Supreme Court’s conditions while releasing Kejriwal on bail, make it difficult for him to perform the role of chief minister effectively. He would not, for instance, have been able to visit his chief minister’s office or the Delhi Secretariat to sign official files.
For the Narendra Modi-led BJP, which has won landslide victories in the general elections in India in 2014 and 2019, the capital Delhi has been a thorn in its flesh. It has lost out to AAP in the last three Delhi assembly elections in 2013, 2015 and again in 2020. The AAP government’s populist measures like free electricity, free neighborhood clinics and its overhauling of the dilapidated Delhi government schools have resonated with the masses for over a decade.
Interestingly, while AAP has won the state assembly polls, Delhi voters have consistently voted for the BJP in the parliamentary elections, rooting for a Narendra Modi-led central government. The BJP won all seven parliamentary seats in the capital in 2014, 2019 and again in 2024.
It is this trend of “split voting” that the BJP is desperate to break. The party boasts of having a “double engine government” in 19 states i.e. BJP is in power in the center and the state as well. Therefore, Delhi under AAP is an irritant to the BJP.
Since 2014, the BJP has been aggressively attacking opposition party-ruled states and attempting to overthrow them. And the Modi government has lost no opportunity in trying to sabotage the functioning of the AAP-led Delhi government through its administrative head, the lieutenant governor, which it appoints.
Political analysts say the BJP is trying to discredit AAP in the eyes of Delhi voters. By slapping charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against AAP leaders, it has sought to undermine the party’s anti-corruption plank.
Surprisingly, despite Kejriwal gaining immense sympathy from Delhi voters for being “unjustifiably jailed” and being victimized by the central government, this did not translate into votes in the 2024 general elections. AAP had been hopeful that Kejriwal campaigning for 21 days when he was out briefly on bail, would help it reap electoral dividends. However, AAP did not win even a single seat. It had even joined hands with the Congress to corner the BJP. But that too did not work.
Therefore, AAP is apprehensive of the outcome of the upcoming Delhi polls. The party is already facing anti-incumbency and must find a way to counter that effectively.
In such a scenario, Kejriwal has chosen to be a bold risk-taker and decided to step down.
While announcing his decision to resign, he even dared the central government to hold early polls in November; thereby conveying that the AAP was poll-ready.
Kejriwal has never hesitated to directly attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Indeed, he put the BJP on defensive mode when he questioned who would be the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate when Modi retires after turning 75 in September 2025. The BJP went on record to state that Modi would not be replaced despite all the speculation.
Kejriwal is now focused on the AAP campaign in the Haryana assembly elections. He is exhorting the public to vote for AAP by frequently referring to his decision to resign as Delhi chief minister as a “trial by fire” to prove his honest credentials. He says his bid to prove his innocence is similar to what Lord Ram’s wife Sita did in the holy Hindu epic Ramayana.
Will Kejriwal’s gamble pay off? It is early days yet.