AAP has disproved the cynics, but lets not get swept away

Like a lot of other people in Delhi, I didn’t think Arvind Kejriwal had a shot in hell. It’s not that the anti-corruption message didn’t resonate, I just thought fasting was not the answer to every problem. Maybe it came from my discomfort at how Kejriwal caught our attention — by idolising someone who got people flogged for drinking in his village, sharing a stage with the likes of ponytailed manager who has no sense of irony — somewhere along the way, I became deeply cynical. Yesterday however, magic happened. [caption id=“attachment_1276409” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Naresh Sharma/Firstpost[/caption] I was watching news channels monitor election results coming in from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Delhi, and Delhi was the most exciting of the four because the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had made a bid for the capital, much like Alok Nath asking an industrialist for his daughter’s hand for his poor son. The hired dholwala left the Congress headquarters by 9am (referred to as an early trend) and soon it was clear that the state would be split between the BJP and AAP. It was then that we were treated to the clown circus called ‘panel discussion’. I feel bad for political party representatives on election-result day because they have to defend the party line even in face of loss, rather than speak honestly. BJP representatives have it easy because all they have to do is trip over each other saying, “MODI IS GREAT MODI IS AWESOME MODI IS HE-MAN MODI IS ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER MODI MODI MODI!” If you started downing tequila, sorry, aam ras shots every time someone said “Modi effect”, it’d take you five minutes to start slurring. Still, it was nice to see Rajiv Pratap Rudy smile instead of his usual look of suffering from acute gastroenteritis. Congress representatives like Jayanti Natarajan, however, had to resort to platitudes like “We accept this verdict with humility”, as if they had a choice. My personal favourite: “It was a victory for democracy.” Victory for democracy after losing an election is like Pakistanis’ trying to take credit by saying an Indian doing something applause-worthy is a “victory for South Asia”. By this time, Arvind Kejriwal’s was leading against Sheila Dixit by over 10,000 votes and soon even the most pro Congress panelists were asking Dixit to stop defending Rahul Gandhi. But I suppose one cannot afford to lose one’s job in such a tight economy. It must also hurt to be schooled on changing the political system by an AAP representative who uses words like “wanna” and is wearing a cap made famous by one of the Congress party’s icons. I just hope news channels gave them a tube of Vicco Turmeric their way out. As more statistics roll in, I cannot help but feel a little less cynical about the voters of Delhi. This is an excellent start (and for now, that is all that is). The fact that the party managed to prove a lot of us wrong is truly exceptional. Maybe there is still a place for idealism in Indian politics. Now if only they’d stop dancing around with brooms because really, they don’t look cool. They just look like tantricks playing quidditch.