The Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi is a minority government now. The lone independent MLA Rambir Shokeen has withdrawn his support from the government.
The Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi is a minority government now. The lone independent MLA Rambir Shokeen has withdrawn his support from the government.
With expulsion of AAP MLA Vinod Kumar Binny and another elected as a speaker of the assembly, the strength of the AAP government has come down to 26 from 28. There are eight Congress MLA’s supporting AAP and now the party is one mark short of the majority, which is 36.
The AAP government is not at all interested in saving its government as was clear by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s many statements. The most recent was made on Sunday where Kejriwal showed his arrogance by saying that he would resign if Lokpal was not passed in the assembly and that he did not care about the post.
This sent a signal to the political circuits that AAP was trying to seek martyrdom in order to gain mileage out of its exit in the upcoming general elections. Kejriwal arranged a press conference on Monday evening to justify and explain his threat made a day earlier. He said that he would never want to topple his own government.
But the main opposition, BJP, has been calling the bluffs quite well. The party has decided that it will not seek Lieutenant General Najeeb Jung’s intervention to ask the AAP government to prove majority. And even if they do not do it, AAP will be required to prove majority.
Earlier in the day, leader of opposition Harsh Vardhan had tweeted that his party will “not allow Arvind Kejriwal to resign and run away”. Apparently, the AAP has not sent a copy of the Lokpal Bill to the BJP. But the party is still stating its support to the government for the passage of the same.
But a minority government is what Kejriwal might have needed at the moment.
The AAP is trying to find its ground back. It has a task to repeat what happened in Delhi. And the time to general elections is quite near. Many of AAP’s decisions, as admitted by party ideologue and probably the only polite spokesperson in the party Yogendra Yadav, have been bad and uncalled for. The party will have to correct many wrongs and deliver something exemplary in order to catch the receding faith among the public.
It is a survival instinct that will lead AAP to the glory of clinching the seats that it might want to just stay afloat as an idea of an alternative in the country.
If things do not go as planned, or if the people turn out to be different from the perception of AAP, the party will just fall apart. Its support base will wane out. Its members will just leave it for the want of some sanity.
Right now, it looks like the window of opportunity, just like Kejriwal would have wanted – a way out.
