NEW DELHI: SEVEN weeks of sound and fury that signified nothing came to an end in the Capital on a rainy Friday evening as Kejriwal and his Council of Ministers quit, seeking dissolution of the Assembly and fresh elections.
AAP's great escape moment came at the end of a long day that saw the Arvind Kejriwal government lose a vote on tabling the Jan Lokpal Bill in the House. AAP's wild success, however, was hogging the national news space with a martyr act devised to slingshot the Aam Aadmi Party into the Lok Sabha elections that are less than 100 days away. Meanwhile, Delhi's immediate political future slipped back into a flux of questions.
The two big parties- Congress and BJP- reacted with I- told- you- so contempt. Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely called the AAP move "scripted" and "pre- planned", while Delhi BJP chief Vijay Goel said the resignation was "political drama orchestrated by AAP to prepare for Lok Sabha polls". Kejriwal's oft-repeated claims that his party would get 50 seats in the House if a re- election were to take place and that his outfit would contest over 300 seats in the Lok Sabha polls only served to underline what AAP's opponents were saying.
"The party has only one face and it is Kejriwal. It is very strategic decision. Now he would be able to concentrate more on the Lok Sabha polls. He will lead the campaign. Moreover, in case of re- election, he will go to the public and tell them that the two main parties did not allow him to run the government. He will try to become martyr," said S. K. Sharma, former secretary, Delhi Assembly. A senior AAP leader told Mail Today on condition of anonymity that the party with its declared intention of contesting more than 350 Lok Sabha seats needed Kejriwal to lead the campaign. The party after all, despite all its insistence on swaraj and delegation of power, is driven by Kejriwal and it is his face that is identified with the party, the AAP leader added.
AAP's second- rung leaders have made no secret of their conviction that the Delhi experiment is a laboratory. Most say that the recent politics in the Capital like the Kejriwal- led dharna against the police or the order to the Anti- Corruption Branch to file a FIR against Reliance Industries and Union minister Veerappa Moily or taking on private power distribution companies has caught the attention of people across the country.
After the Jan Lokpal drama stretched through the day only to end in the House voting by a majority against the Bill being tabled, Kejriwal hit the ground whining, driving from the Delhi Secretariat to his party headquarters near Hanuman Mandir in Central Delhi in his WagonR, and addressing a crowd of AAP supporters in true streetfighting style.
Kejriwal spoke from the same window, the same spot, from where he had delivered his election victory speech on December 28 last year.
The crowd below had been mobilized well before the Assembly proceedings were over.
Kejriwal's fiery speech accused everybody else, from BJP leader Narendra Modi to Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani to Union minister Veerappa Moily, of corruption. If Kejriwal's Valentine Day rant was the preamble to AAP's poll campaign, it was pretty clear that the party would showcase how its best efforts had been stymied by the Congress and BJP. Kejriwal's resignation throws up some possibilities for Delhi. There may be re- election, for which the Delhi BJP has said it is more than ready, or there may be a spell of President's Rule, or the BJP may be asked to come forward to take charge. Sharma said the decision will be political. " The ball is in the court of Congress. Assembly may be put in suspended animation.
There may be re- election. Decision has to be taken by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and Congress will play a major role," said Sharma.
L- G is expected to give his report to the Centre on Saturday on the follow- up action after the resignation of the AAP government. He will likely send his report to the President through the MHA for a final decision on whether to bring Delhi under central rule or hold fresh elections along with the Lok Sabha polls as advised by the outgoing Cabinet.
L- G Najeeb Jung late on Friday asked the AAP government to function till their resignations are accepted ( likely to take 5- 6 days), to which the party responded favourably.
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