Arvind Kejriwal ended the iconic Shiela Dikshit’s political career 12 years ago on the back of an anti-corruption movement but he was a shadow of that towering radical on Saturday, defeated in that same seat where he had won three successive victories on the strength of his promise of a new kind of politics.
Hours after the ashen-faced Kejriwal stepped forward to admit defeat and pledged to “work for the people”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi summarised his situation after AAP’s rout in Delhi. “AAP came with a promise of a new politics, but they turned out to be corrupt. I was listening to Anna Hazare’s statement today. He said the election results in Delhi have validated what he has been saying all this while, and relieved him of the pain of watching his movement being sullied by these people. This party, which was born in an anti-corruption movement, itself became corrupt. Its CM, ministers went to jail on corruption charges. They used to give certificates of honesty to themselves and paint everybody else black. But they were defrauding people. The liquor scam was a betrayal of the people’s trust. When people were suffering in the pandemic, they were making a ‘sheesh mahal’,” said the PM, in a scathing takedown of Kejriwal.
And the PM warned of what is to come for Kejriwal, who is on bail from corruption charges. “Now the mandate has come. I guarantee that the CAG report will be tabled in the first session of the Assembly. Corruption will be probed and whoever has looted will have to pay. This is Modi’s guarantee,” said the PM.
The PM’s takedown of Kejriwal followed a staggering defeat that the AAP leader suffered in New Delhi. He was defeated by the BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh, a former MP who was not considered for 2024 Lok Sabha elections by the saffron party, by 4,089 votes. While Singh polled 30,088 votes, Kejriwal managed to get 25,999 votes.
Routed by BJP
Kejriwal’s entire second line of leadership was routed. Former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who shifted from Patparganj constituency to a relatively safer seat of Jangpura, lost to BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah by a slender margin of 675 votes. Similarly, former Minister Satyender Jain lost Shakur Basti seat to BJP’s Karnail Singh by a margin of 20,998 votes. Another prominent AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj went down in Greater Kailash to BJP’s Shikha Roy by over 3,000 votes. The only saving grace for the AAP top brass was that outgoing Chief Minister Atishi and her cabinet colleague Gopal Rai.
Altogether, AAP won 22 seats in the 70-member Delhi assembly. It got 43.54 per cent vote share, a significant fall from 62 constituencies it cornered in 2020 assembly elections. The drubbing is already reverberating in Punjab which is ruled by AAP leader Bhagwant Maan.
Congress is already up with claims that 30 AAP MLAs are in touch with them for crossing over to their party. “There is a battle between Punjab AAP and Delhi AAP. Bhagwant Mann is in touch with the Ministry of Home Affairs. The first passenger to become Eknath Shinde when this Maharashtra plane lands in Chandigarh will be Bhagwant Mann,” said Congress leader Pratap Singh Bajwa.
Kejriwal’s own situation is precarious as CBI has named him as an accused in Delhi excise policy in July, last year. Kejriwal was arrested like his trusted associate and former Deputy CM Sisodia who was put behind the bars in relation to the same liquor gate.
Another case, this time to probe irregularities in renovation of Delhi CM house, which the BJP coined as “Sheesh Mahal” due to alleged lavish spending on the facelift of the bungalow, was the final blow to his own cult image built on the anti-corruption crusade.