Article : Shri Arun Jaitley on "The AAP's alternative politics falters"

The AAP's alternative politics falters

- Arun Jaitley
Leader of Opposition (Rajya Sabha)

India was promised alternative politics. I had personally hoped that alternative politics promised by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), would lead to larger footprints on the Indian society. Conventional political parties and politicians would realize the importance of probity and accountability. The country is being presented with gimmickry and the road to anarchy.

There is an in-built danger in establishing a political party and then going out to search its members and its ideology. In the process, a group of disparate, self-opinionated persons have flocked to the new outfit. A former airline owner from Bangalore and a banker from Mumbai appear to be protagonists of the market economy. An important Maoist sympathizer from Chhattisgarh is a member of the party. Yet, another one from the Jawaharlal Nehru University was advising various groups of Kashmir to unite against the Indian state. His commitment had taken him to depose before an US Federal Committee (USCIRF) against the Gujarat government. One key member espouses the idea of referendum in the Kashmir valley and the Maoist dominated areas whether security is required to be provided in these areas or not. An activist from Ahmedabad who converted Anti-Modism into full time occupation wants to know the opinion of other members of the Party amongst others on the issue of gay sex. She has reservations on admitting those into the party who have conservative views on gay sex.

The new party has a distinct concept of new jurisprudence, that judges now will have to report to the executive. An accused minister has the power to decide whether a judge is right or otherwise. He rejects the order against him. The initial enthusiasm of mobocracy as an instrument of decision making has somewhat died down. Initial indication of the economic policy of the party appears to be for nationalization of natural resources and Airports, higher subsidy and hence higher taxes. A sense of idealism has been replaced by desire for job seeking, resulting in fissures within the party.

All this has been achieved in less than three weeks. My fear is that the failure of this experiment should not be confused by other parties as a failure of the good message of higher standards of probity and accountability.

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