Cornered by Centre, AAP offers olive branch to foes

Cowed down by the Centre’s continuing territorial belligerence and its dismal performance in the recent round of Assembly and municipal polls, the Aam Aadmi Party is fast withdrawing into a strategic retreat and considering possible alignments with other Opposition parties.

At the receiving end of the Centre’s curbs on the administrative functioning of his government, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal reportedly called his predecessor Shiela Dikshit, someone he had continually targeted in the run-up to the 2013 Assembly polls.

Kejriwal’s outreach to Dikshit was reportedly about how to manage the Delhi government in view of the Centre’s overarching administrative powers.

The Delhi government has been paralysed with the Chief Minister lacking even the power to transfer and post officials in his own office.

Over a dozen AAP MLAs are facing criminal charges and 21 face disqualification for using Office of Profit, while there are fresh allegations against the party almost on a daily basis.

On Wednesday, an AAP MLA, Som Dutt, was placed on trial for the alleged offences of rioting and assaulting a man, and the Anti-Corruption Branch of Delhi questioned Kejriwal’s private secretary Bibhav Kumar in connection with a probe in the ₹400-crore water-tanker scam.

Simultaneously, the Chief Minister and his deputy Manish Sisodia were seen pleading with the Centre to clear a file with regard to appointment of two new ministers in the Delhi Cabinet.

After the removal of Kapil Mishra, who has been making sweeping charges of corruption against Kejriwal, and another Minister, Sandeep Kumar, last year, Kejriwal wants to appoint two new ministers.

The file has been pending with the Centre since May 6.

“The file for approval of two new ministers in Delhi has been pending with the Centre for the past 10 days. Kapil Mishra’s theatrics have also ceased since then. At least clear the file now,” Sisodia tweeted.

Feeling cornered, Kejriwal is now clearly much more amenable to alignments with other political parties. He met with Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday. After the results of the recent Assembly elections came out and AAP’s efforts in Punjab came a cropper, Kejriwal also had a breakfast meeting with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on April 19. He called for an alliance of “all good people” to fight the BJP, after this meeting.

“There is an atmosphere of fear. The business community, industrialists, media people or commoners, everybody is afraid of the situation in the country, which is wrong,” he said with Pinarayi by his side.

“I feel the power is in the hands of wrong forces and they are getting an edge in the country. To fight this, all good people should come together,” he said to a question about whether his meeting with the Kerala CM is the beginning of an alliance between the AAP and other political forces. Kejriwal has also been in touch with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar who has maintained a soft corner for the young leader.

Besides this outreach, the AAP is also mulling curbing its national expansion. For instance, the party may desist from contesting the Assembly polls in Gujarat, a State where it has been fairly proactive in the past few months.