The Lok Satta Party, which occupies one seat in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, has said it could not have an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party as it had "monopolistic ambitions" and exhibited "immaturity".
The party's founder N Jayaprakash Narayan said the AAP does not seem to have the ability to work "across the aisle" and also adopted unsound economic philosophy.
"Just like Lok Satta, AAP is a movement, now a political party that came from the yearnings of the middle classes. We welcome that. We gave unreserved support to AAP in Delhi elections," Narayan, a bureaucrat-turned-politician, told PTI here in an interview.
"We also extended a hand of friendship to them, though we had some serious concerns about their approach and their economic philosophy. Despite that, we felt that forces of change should not be divided. For some reason, they had monopolistic ambitions and they also exhibited a lot of immaturity," he said.
Narayan was replying to why Lok Satta could not form an alliance with the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit.
"AAP is a bit like the small little boy on the shoulders of the father who exposed the nakedness of the emperor. When emperor is naked, somebody should say that. It is necessary. When politics is dirty and things are rotten, we must shout from the roof tops. That is welcome.
"Supposing, the small boy is suddenly made the king, there will be a disaster. You require a mature approach. You require institutional approach. You must recognise that there are good people all over, in all parties," said Narayan, who is an MLA in the outgoing Andhra Pradesh Assembly.
Virtue is not a monopoly, the MLA from Kukatpally said.
"Not only in the Lok Satta and AAP, but even in the BJP, the Congress and the regional parties, there are many good and decent people. Because of the circumstances locally, they had to choose a certain platform. You must not think that virtue is our monopoly. How do you cut across these barriers and work together," he said.
Noting that an institutional approach is desirable to bring about positive changes in the political system, he said the "notion that everything is bad and destroy everything is a childish approach."
"We have a Supreme Court, we have Constitutional authorities, we have agencies in government, we have bureaucracy. We have legislatures, we have political parties. So how do you make these things work better? That requires a much deeper understanding," he said.
