'If Kejriwal is adamant on running his government from jail, then his government could be dismissed and Article 356 imposed on Delhi, in other words President's rule in Delhi.'
Ashutosh was close to Arvind Kejriwal before he quit journalism to join the Aam Aadmi Party in January 2014. He later became AAP's national spokesperson.
In 2018, he quit AAP for personal reasons.
"Kejriwal has been arrested under PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) so he won't be able to get bail so easily. If he has to stay in jail for more than six months, then more trouble will follow for the party," Ashutosh tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
Arvind Kejriwal joined politics to fight against corruption and today he is in jail in a corruption case. How do you see this development as a political analyst and as a former colleague of Kejriwal?
This is a very unfortunate and sad incident, for the simple reason that Kejriwal joined politics to rid India of corrupt politics.
I am not going into the merit of this case, but Kejriwal going to jail is ironic because he has been speaking against corruption in politics all the time.
What does the future hold for AAP?
AAP is facing the biggest crisis in its history.
They are not used to run a government or party without Arvind Kejriwal. He has been arrested under PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) by the Enforcement Directorate so he won't be able to get bail so easily.
If he has to stay in jail for more than six months, then more trouble will follow for the party.
Trouble? How?
Two troubles in which the first will be that he won't be able to run the government of Delhi from jail.
It is not possible to run a government sitting in jail.
If he is adamant on running his government from jail then his government could be dismissed and Article 356 imposed on Delhi, in other words President's rule in Delhi state.
In such a scenario, it will be better if Kejriwal resigns from his post and appoints some other person as the chief minister of Delhi.
The second trouble for AAP is that its other two big leaders, Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh, are also in jail.
This has led to a crisis within the party as there is no second rung leadership capable of taking care of the party like Kejriwal and run the party like he did.
If Kejriwal remains in jail for longer, I foresee a future where there are chances that AAP can disintegrate as a party.
I am not saying they will surely disintegrate, but you cannot rule out completely that AAP won't disintegrate as a party.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren resigned and went to jail after appointing another chief minister, so why cannot Kejriwal do the same?
It is difficult for me to say why he is not resigning, but I think he could be thinking that if he holds on to the CM's post then public sympathy will be with him in the coming elections.
Personally, I feel he is being advised wrongly by his advisors that he should rule Delhi from jail because never in the history of independent India has a chief minister run a state from jail.
If he still insists of ruling from jail the central government can tell the lieutenant governor of Delhi that there is a constitutional crisis in Delhi and Article 356 need to be imposed.
What about AAP leaders like Raghav Chadha, Aatishi Marlena and Saurabh Bharadwaj? Are they not capable of leading Delhi?
In a crisis any leader can become a big political leader and we have seen that happening in politics. Sometimes this new leadership leads the party to greater heights and this could happen, and I don't deny this cannot happen.
The problem right now with AAP's second rung leadership who are out of jail is that they have no experience to run a government or AAP without Arvind Kejriwal's guidance.
The second problem about these leaders is that they have very little experience in politics. They are good human beings and good professionals, but politics is a different ball game altogether. And they will find it difficult with a hostile central government and the cases that are being alleged on the party.
Lok Sabha elections are in two months and in this scenario the absence of a face like Kejriwal will create a lot of chaos in AAP.
It is possible that competition may begin among AAP's second rung leadership, but at this moment we do not see that happening as it is only a day since Kejriwal has been arrested.
In the future, there could be another leader that can emerge from AAP, but right now we do not see any potential leader after Kejriwal.
Will Kejriwal get public sympathy because of his arrest?
AAP may think this way, but I doubt it.
If leaders like Sanjay Singh or Manish Sisodia were out of jail they could have turned this crisis into opportunity and got more votes for AAP.
It will be very interesting now to watch the AAP leaders who are outside whether they have the calibre to create a big movement among the masses by putting the Modi government and BJP in the dock.
The new AAP leadership has to go out and convince people that Kejriwal was wrongly incarcerated.
We will have to wait and see because you never know how the mood of the people changes and they start favouring the Opposition parties. We have seen such examples happening in the past.
- Part 2 of the interview: 'You can never write off Arvind Kejriwal'
