Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (How long will AAP survive?) that was published in Newsband

How long will AAP survive?

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came from nowhere and took everyone, especially the ruling party at the centre, by surprise. Arvind Kejriwal deserves standing ovation for making such dashing entry in the political arena. The Congress would call itself a party of the downtrodden. But the aam aadmi slogan, coined on the eve of the 2004 general election, brilliantly captured the party’s social conscience even as it mocked at the BJP’s ‘India Shining’ preoccupations. Kejriwal has got away with AAP precisely because the Congress has failed to protect the interests of its core constituency, the aam aadmi. Indeed, Kejriwal has tapped into the anguish of those sections that have felt betrayed by India’s Grand Old Party. The scams and scandals have stuck to the Congress. A Congress spokesperson had the audacity to ask why it was wrong of banks and companies to advance unsecured loans to Robert Vadra. Vadra’s caricature of the aam aadmi as the mango people completed the damage.

Thus Kejriwal and his team have taken on the holy cows in the political class. AAP must move beyond fighting corruption to evolve into a party with an agenda that addresses all of India’s problems. It is very important for Kejriwal to have a strong cadre before taking his policies to the masses. Running a political party and maintaining a vibrant cadre is very hard especially in national scenario and we had a lot number of examples where many parties failed to maintain their establishments and shut their shop after one or two general elections.

Chiranjeevi failed to reach his new party’s expectations, so also Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Jan Shakti Party. Former I.A.S. officer and often considered to be an intellectual Bureaucrat JayaPrakash Narayan's LokSatta too could not move into the masses. These cases show that the vote bank and election foray in India is all together a different game that a person like Arvind Kejriwal needs to tackle with. Let's hope that Kejriwal and his AAP meets with success. His "Pan-India" presence and his selection of the "Aam aadmi", often considered to be a prized possession of Congress, is very appreciable.

When Aam Aadmi shouted slogans and voiced discontent on roads, there was a sure climate of rebellion in the air. People in power were measuring the heat and hate. All the intellectuals in the Team Kejriwal appeared to be convinced with his resounding arguments with an indicating finger, and with logical and touching explanations appearing to be grouping strongly. Also with the message of AAP making inroads into the minds of youth and spreading with the help of exchanging messages in Social Networking Sites, Indian Social Scene now appears to have taken a new form.

This is a good sign in Indian politics. The vision of AAP is excellent as it will be almost same in agenda of all political parties, but the point of concern here is the approach and ‘Implementation’, how effectively it will implement it? If the efficacy is achieved, then all problems of India will be automatically resolved in a time.