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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) may be contesting the 2014 elections with a sense of purpose but its eyes are fixed on 2015: when the party believes a bigger battle awaits it.
Top party leaders are of the view that the general elections will throw up a fractured mandate and the elected government will fall soon leading to a re-election in 12 months.
Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal has voiced this opinion publicly. The party’s target now is to gain maximum ground in the elections to eventually defeat the top leadership of both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress.
“If (BJP’s Narendra) Modi is defeated from Varanasi and (Congress’) Rahul Gandhi from Amethi, the politics of the country will change. Congress will cease to exist and if Modi loses, you can imagine what will happen to the BJP,” Kejriwal told his volunteers during a Google Hangout session on 1 April.
Kejriwal will stay in Varanasi for a month to campaign. He is also expected to visit Amethi to help its candidate, Kumar Vishwas, in the constituency.
During his interaction with the volunteers, Kejriwal further added that this situation would lead to a re-election in 2015.
“I think after a year, there will be re-elections and a huge vacuum will be created then leading to honest people entering the Parliament,” Kejriwal said.
The AAP believes, like the Delhi Assembly, the new government at the Centre will be short-lived.
“This election is not going to produce a decisive result and the government that will be formed at the Centre will not last long,” Supreme Court lawyer and AAP senior leader Prashant Bhushan told Business Standard.
Bhushan said that the party hopes to establish a strong position in the political arena through the 2014 elections and prepare itself for the battle that awaits them a few years later.
The party has so far decided to field 425 candidates for the Parliamentary polls. Bhushan admitted that AAP will not be in a position to form the government but added that this election will make sure that the party is geared for the elections that will follow in a year according to the party’s calculations.
“This election will give us a footprint across the country and ultimately it is we who will gather most support in case of a re-election,” said Bhushan.
Accordingly, AAP has made it clear that in case of a fractured mandate, it will not support any of the “corrupt parties”. In other words, AAP’s position in the Lok Sabha will be different from that in the Delhi Assembly where it said it would neither support anyone nor accept anyone’s support but eventually formed a government with the help of the Congress.
“In Delhi, we knew that our government would not last. hence we tried doing as much as we could in the limited time that we were in power. As far as this election is concerned, we will not offer support to any corrupt government: which is very clear,” said Bhushan.
The party has not given a thought to supporting the Third Front should it stake a claim for power at the Centre but it said that it will be “difficult to support many corrupt leaders” in the Third Front.
