This refers to the editorial "Behind AAP's sweep" (February 11), The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got a historic mandate in the Lok Sabha elections last year more because of the anti-incumbency factor than the Modi wave. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has landed a similar landslide victory in the Delhi Assembly elections, which is attributable more to the negative vote-stemming from Modi's tub-thumping and unilateral politics than AAP's populist agenda. It is worth mentioning here that as Delhi is the seat of the Union government also, its voters are swayed equally by national and regional issues.
The bigger problem for AAP is that it is a loosely knit organisation, with leaders having diverse ideological mooring and social backgrounds. What binds the party together is its leaders' amorphous idealism and altruism. They are, therefore, liable to speak at cross purposes when it comes to the implementation of the party's policies and programmes. In order to avoid this scenario, AAP needs to have some ideological anchor for its inner cohesion. Arvind Kejriwal's personal charisma is not enough to hold the party together for a long time.
Tarsem Singh Hoshiarpur
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