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Yogendra Yadav, a senior leader in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), believes the people wanted AAP to be more responsible, and that the party needs to learn from its mistakes. In an interview with Somesh Jha, Yadav says that AAP's maiden national election was fairly successful. Edited excerpts:
Do you think this (judicial custody for Arvind Kejriwal when he refused to take bail) could have been avoided?
This is the fourth time that Arvind (Kejriwal) has been summoned by the court on a very similar charge. This is basically criminal contempt. In the previous three cases, Arvind said exactly what he said today - this happened before he was chief minister, during his tenure and now after it. On all the previous occasions, he said: I will not take bail or furnish any bond, and if you recall, there was an instance when a magistrate said you have to and Arvind said he cannot. After adjournment, the magistrate had asked for an undertaking. So, today for some reason, which is not clear to me, the magistrate took a very different stance and said that you have to give a bond. And Arvind refused in exactly the same manner as in the past, on the simple grounds that he refused to be treated as a criminal. From our side, we didn't do anything special today. Somehow, the judiciary has taken a very different view.
Let's talk about the post-arrest scenario. Could there have been alternatives other than street protests outside Tihar Jail?
There is something very strange about a country where people who are involved in some of the biggest scams are sitting there laughing away in their drawing rooms and getting ready to be ministers; and those who protest against corruption are in jail.
And we said we would sit in solidarity. That's all we were doing. We were not saying anything about the judiciary. They said we were blocking the road, so we sat on the pavement. We were sitting on the pavement from where we were dragged, we were not blocking any traffic. An officer said that it was a high-security area. About 100,000 people might pass this area every day, it is a very busy route, so if they are not a security threat, then how are we a threat?
On Tuesday, Arvind Kejriwal met Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and requested him not to dissolve the Assembly for a week since the party may look to form a government after seeking referendum from the people. But on Wednesday morning, Kejriwal said there is a very bleak chance and we are preparing for re-elections. Why the mixed signals?
The party has issued a statement that clarifies everything. You can please refer to that.
Talking about the Lok Sabha elections; what do you think are the biggest takeaways?
There are the positives and negatives. This was our maiden national election and my sense is that it was fairly successful. One which compares to two other successful debuts we have seen in the last 40 years - one was the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1984, where it got two seats and second was the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1989, which secured three seats. I am not mentioning hundreds of other debuts because all others failed. Compared to that, if you look at our performance, it is not just the four seats that we have. We have more than 10 million votes and over 100,000 volunteers who worked with us.
We raised new issues in politics that were not raised in the past, we have managed to contest elections with white money, we managed a breakthrough in the second state. I don't know how many political parties have done that in the first 18 months of their existence. So, we had a lot to build on. The challenges, of course, was Delhi, which was a disappointment, although we added to our vote share. Benaras was also a let-down and we were expecting a breakthrough in Haryana, which did not happen - this happened in Punjab. I think that's what debuts are like. Most people who commented on it and have pronounced AAP a failure, they have actually never read history. They do not understand what debut elections are like, and anyone who thought that Delhi could be repeated in 28 states overnight, they must be very optimistic.
Is there any lesson to be learnt from Narendra Modi, looking at his thumping victory?
There are many lessons which we would not like to learn from Mr Modi. The kind of politics he represents, the amount of money he used, the image makeover that took place. This is not what we associate with politics. But there are lessons we have to learn from our own mistakes. The feedback from people is that they did not like our resignation from the Delhi government, the mode in which it was taken and the decision itself. They wanted to see us more responsible when it comes to governance, they want to see us more mature and people want us to be governance-worthy. So we need to learn all this, and in democracy you need to learn from the people.
Do you concede there was a Modi wave?
There was clearly a wave in favour of the BJP. The question is: what name do you give to this wave? There was a wave that brought the BJP to power. When you call it a Modi wave, you forget there are several things working here. I think this was a combination of three things: the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had created a moral, political and governance vacuum, so people were willing to try anyone but the UPA.
Second, the BJP was a viable political formation and people were not willing to take risks with someone very new. Third, Modi's image - I am not talking about the reality because that doesn't matter in politics - appears to be that of someone who is decisive and bring deliverance to the country. All of this caused a huge difference and this is what you call a wave. Whatever name you give to the wave, that doesn't matter.
On January 31, AAP released a list of "corrupt politicians" and vowed to defeat them by putting up strong candidates. But you couldn't defeat any of them. Do you think this motive failed?
Do you mean none of them lost the elections?
Some of them did but not to AAP...
That's all right. How does AAP matter if the country can get rid of corrupt and criminal politicians? Whether AAP gets the credit or anyone else, how does it matter?
What happened in your constituency of Gurgaon, Haryana?
Gurgaon was no different from any other constituency in and around Delhi. The wave that you describe that we talked about earlier affected this entire area - all constituencies of Haryana, Delhi and NCR, and many other parts of the country. Besides that, in my constituency, there was huge polarisation on communal lines in the end, along with small elements of rigging. I am not saying that had rigging not taken place, I would have won. I don't think I would have. I guess my performance would have been slightly better. Even if communal polarisation hadn't happened, the wave was too strong for us to change things in the constituency. I also think, when you do not win elections, people do not think you are deserving. Maybe I have to know the area more, get involved in local politics. People wanted me to learn more.
In hindsight, was it too soon for AAP to contest the Lok Sabha elections?
There is nothing such as too soon in politics. Otherwise, we would have been taking this step five years later. A debut election has to be a small-step election. I am glad it happened now rather than 5 years later.
