Is This Arvind Kejriwal's VP Singh Moment?

Think of the 1988 Allahabad by-election. Singh’s victory altered the texture of the campaign against Rajiv Gandhi.

The time has come for Kejriwal to grow up. He can no longer be the enfant terrible of Indian politics.

(Photo: The Quint)

Elections often hang on a single issue with one leader as the fulcrum. Delhi Chief Minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest may have handed both to an Opposition campaign that was wilting rapidly under the Modi blitz.

For the first time, Opposition leaders spoke in one voice to condemn his late-night arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). More significant was the support extended by Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) bitterest rival and critic, the Congress party.

Not only was Rahul Gandhi among the first to put out a tweet slamming the arrest, he deputed two senior party leaders from Delhi to meet Kejriwal minutes before the ED led him away. He has also offered the beleaguered CM legal assistance.

There couldn’t be more gratifying signals for someone whose prickly nature and confrontationist style of politics have kept him on the margins of Opposition unity. Kejriwal managed a place for his party in the INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc but not without first ruffling a few feathers with unpleasant controversies and threats.

He also succeeded in browbeating the Congress into agreeing to seat adjustments in three states including Delhi even as he held out on Punjab where his party is currently in power.

However, his arrest marks a new phase in his trajectory. Not only is Kejriwal the latest in a long line of Opposition leaders targeted by the ED and the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), but he is also the first sitting CM to be arrested, that too after elections have been called and campaigning has started.

How VP Singh Took Rajiv Gandhi Down

This puts him in the unique position of developing himself into a mascot for democracy and becoming the pivot of an election campaign with echoes of 1977 when Indira Hatao, Desh Bachao became the post-Emergency rallying cry of a unified Opposition.

Kejriwal must take the plunge and contest a Lok Sabha seat himself, whether in jail or out of it. An illustrious precedent was set in 1977 by George Fernandes who contested the election from jail and won.

A bold move by Kejriwal has the potential to change the dynamics of the ongoing election. Think 1988, the Allahabad by-election and VP Singh’s thumping victory against the Congress candidate. It altered the texture of the campaign against Rajiv Gandhi and marked the beginning of the Congress decline in Uttar Pradesh.

The previous year, VP Singh had quit the post of defence minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government, then resigned from the Congress and ultimately from the Lok Sabha as well.

Although the developments shook the government, VP Singh remained strangely inactive for almost a year while the public grew impatient for action. He was even disinclined to contest the Lok Sabha by-election from Allahabad in 1988, necessitated by then-sitting MP Amitabh Bachchan’s resignation.

It took a great deal of persuasion by well-wishers to get him to agree. Yet, he threw a last-minute spanner in the works by announcing that he would not contest just hours before filing his nomination papers. The announcement sent shock waves through the Opposition and once again, well-wishers rushed to woo and cajole him.

Ultimately, he relented and won the by-poll with a huge margin. It was in that election that the Bofors scandal first figured as an issue in a big way. That’s when VP Singh and the Opposition realised that they had a potent weapon with which to attack Rajiv Gandhi’s government.

The Opposition was galvanised by that election and VP Singh rapidly became the rallying point for the anti-corruption movement that ultimately ousted Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress in 1989. Had he not entered the electoral fray in 1988, the story may have been quite different.

But There Are Differences Between Then and Now

No two elections are the same. It would be facile, therefore, to equate then and now. There are two major differences which need to be factored in. One, VP Singh and Jayaprakash Narayan before him were boosted by active leaders who worked behind the scenes to unify the Opposition. The Socialists stitched together the Janata Party which used JP’s towering stature to propel the anti-Indira grouping to power.

Singh had Lok Dal leader Devi Lal and a host of other Socialists who crafted the Janata Dal for him. It should be noted that VP Singh himself did not do the running.

The other important difference is that in 1977 as well as in 1989, the Opposition challenge was strengthened by leaders who broke away from the Congress party. In 1977, it was Jagjivan Ram and H N Bahuguna. In 1989, It was VP Singh who had walked out with two other prominent faces, Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammad Khan.

Yet, despite the dissimilarities, it may be a risk worth taking. The INDIA bloc doesn’t have much going for it currently. A cry for democracy with a face to rally around could well be the shot in the arm it needs. But for this, Kejriwal will have to rein in his personal ambitions and become the defining symbol of the campaign rather than the PM candidate even as he joins the electoral fray.

The ball is in his court to reach out to the rest of the Opposition and make it work, if only to present a worthy challenge instead of giving Modi and the BJP a tame walkover.

It is up to Kejriwal to seize the moment. He could soften his angularities, evolve a more consensual approach with other Opposition leaders and enlarge his one-and-a-half state platform into one befitting a national leader. Or he could stand on his ego and pursue his Lone Wolf style of politics to the exclusion of others, which will not take him very far.

The time has come for Kejriwal to grow up. He can no longer be the enfant terrible of Indian politics. It worked when he and his newbie party had to grab headlines and stay in the news. But the road ahead calls for maturity and level-headed thinking, especially if he is going to remain in prison for some time.

(Arati R Jerath is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @AratiJ. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)