Poll in May: How AAP is trying to emerge from its own trap

It is good that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is on the defensive over the Somnath Bharti raids and the Arvind Kejriwal dharna, with the Supreme Court itself weighing in against the latter for not upholding the constitution and upbraiding the cops for not thwarting him when section 144 was in force. Hopefully, this will force AAP to think twice before rushing into mindless protests.

However, for AAP critics (this writer is one of them) who believe that Kejriwal must now talk the language of governance, not agitation, the counterpoint is this: it is not AAP's purpose to govern. The fact is AAP never expected to be called in to form a government or run the administration. It got called in to rule Delhi when its agenda was merely to rule the city's streets.

You could say AAP was trapped by the Congress's offer of unconditional support - the result of Rahul Gandhi's post-election promise to do things we "can't even imagine" - and the BJP's reluctance to rule without a majority. But the truth is AAP fell into its own trap: the trap of using referendums to decide on issues that call for leadership.

Naresh Sharma/Firstpost

Moreover, if the Congress had indeed laid a trap, nothing compelled AAP to walk right into it. It could have said "nyet" and walked away. It had no obligation to form the government when the BJP declined.

The idea of "asking the people" - a kind of rough-and-ready referendum that Kejriwal and AAP leaders thought would bail them out of this situation – was the trap AAP sprung on itself. If you let people decide when it is your duty to lead and take an informed decision, you are asking for trouble.

The AAP leadership probably expected the people to say "stay away from Congress and BJP", but the people had just tasted power and wanted to be a part of it. This is how AAP's strategy of avoiding responsibility failed.

This is when they moved to plan B. AAP believes – not unreasonably – that if it gets stuck prematurely in governance issues, some of the gloss surrounding it crusading image will fade. So its current plan is obvious: one is to avoid ceding control of the streets to the BJP by showing it is still activist.  The second prong is to irritate the Congress so much as to force it to withdraw support. The idea is to return to the streets full-time and seek a fuller mandate - hopefully with the looks of a martyr. Kejriwal made no efforts to hide this plan when, in an interview to Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN, he said that cases will soon be launched against Sheila Dikshit so that Congress will regret providing support to him. Any party with even half an intention to govern would not think irritating its supporting ally is the first order of business.

Put another way, Kejriwal will create conditions where the Congress either withdraws support or creates conditions where he himself gets in a conflict with the law and can play martyr. This is also where the dharna and other vigilante stuff come in. For example, if a case is registered against him for an unlawful dharna, Kejriwal will be thrilled to grandstand and seek arrest. In this he is no different from politicians in other parties: nothing burnishes a politician's image more than an arrest.

Kejriwal's gameplan is thus to seek another Delhi assembly election along with the Lok Sabha polls so that he gets a majority on his own.

The CSDS polls showed AAP to be on the ascendant before the dharna taint, but there is no reason to believe this one mistake is going to cost it dearly. Some survey showed that AAP did not lose the support of the poor or the lower middle class due to the dharna. It is hoping to pull off another win in Delhi. So don't expect Kejriwal to be all sweetness and honey over the next four weeks. If anything, AAP could get  more combative.

The problem for AAP is it has very little time. If it is forced to govern for longer, it will stand exposed. It wants to win big before people find out that the process of change is slow and there is no magic bullet to solve the people's problems in one shot.

So Kejriwal's aims are clear: hook or by crook, he will seek a Delhi election in April-May. The Congress strategy is to avoid it and expose AAP as just another political party that can't keep its promises, but in this game AAP holds the higher cards. As Delhi CM, Kejriwal gets to call the elections when he wants it.