Delhi Excise Case: Manish Sisodia's Arrest Casts Shadow Over AAP's Delhi Model, How Is It Managing Fallout?

Following arrests and resignations of Manish Sisodia and Satyendra Jain, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is facing a fresh challenge of protecting the narrative around the "Delhi Model" of AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. 

It's not just the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that's attacking AAP over the corruption cases against its leaders, but also the fellow Opposition party of Congress that has called the federal investigation into the alleged Delhi Excise Policy Scam a "fair investigation".

Following his arrest on Sunday in the alleged Delhi Excise Policy Scam, the then-Deputy CM Sisodia resigned from Kejriwal's post. As the most important minister in the Kejriwal Cabinet, Sisodia was heading 18 of Delhi's 33 departments. As Atishi and Saurabh Bharadwaj are set to replace the two, the portfolios are also to be reallocated, posing an administrative challenge besides the ongoing political challenge. 

As Kejriwal and AAP came to power on an anti-corruption plank, the imprisonment of its top leader Sisodia somehow dents its image. 

Manish Sisodia's arrest casts shadow over Delhi Model

The then-Deputy CM Manish Sisodia was arrested on Sunday for alleged involvement in the alleged Delhi Excise Policy Scam. 

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) are investigating alleged irregularities in the formulation and implementation of Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. Sisodia was arrested by CBI. 

Following the arrest, Sisodia and Jain resigned from the Cabinet. The two developments have thrown a new challenge for the AAP with its rivals using the development to discredit the party's key poll plank of "Kejriwal model of governance". 

The development comes at a time when the Kejriwal-led AAP is gearing up to contest all the seats in the assembly elections to be held in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, keeping its "Delhi model of governance" as one of the key planks for the polls. 

The year 2023 has nine assembly elections that would set the tone for 2024 general elections. 

Outlook last year reported that the BJP was counting on the corruption allegations against AAP leaders to dent its image.

"Political observers point out that attacking AAP on the ground of corruption is an effort to change the narratives of the new politics that Kejriwal brought with him through Lokpal movement. The emergence of AAP was a result of the middle-class intolerance toward the corruption that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was steeped in," noted Outlook's Abhik Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya further noted that the BJP's focus on corruption is also a direct target on Kejriwal who emerged as a common man against corruption.

He noted, "Interestingly, the emergence of Kejriwal as the main political opponent was also dependent on his anti-corruption plank. The videos of Kejriwal, a simple middle-class man with no dynasty-baggage, walking into slums and scolding IAS officers for their irresponsible behavior was the essence that made him survive continuous Narendra Modi waves. His emergence as an educated leader of the middle class who left lucrative job to serve the people has within it a Gandhian asceticism that helped him counter the image of another ascetic leader —Modi— who claimed to be a ‘fakir’."

However, so far the AAP has managed to retain its hold over Delhi as it scored a sound victory in Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections (MCD polls) and ended BJP's MCD supremacy. 

How is AAP managing fallout?

AAP leaders said the party has become stronger whenever it has been attacked and accused the BJP government of running a "witch-hunt" against its leaders.

The AAP leadership has "already" asked the party's state units to "intensify" their campaign against the BJP and the Congress in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan which will go to polls this year, the sources told PTI. 

The party will turn the table on the BJP with a massive counter-campaign highlighting a range of issues, including allegations of stock manipulation by the Adani Group and the alleged misuse of central probe agencies by its government at the Centre, said these sources to PTI.

"The AAP has become stronger whenever it has been attacked and efforts have been made to crush the party. The AAP survived even when it was nothing. Today, we have our government in two states and our members in two other state assemblies," AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj told PTI.

Bharadwaj dubbed Sisodia's arrest by the CBI as political vendetta and accused the Modi government of running "an organised witch-hunt" of the AAP leaders.

An AAP leader also claimed that the resignations by Sisodia and Jain, who are victims of political vendetta,  has taken the fizz off the BJP campaign against the party.    

Bharadwaj also took on the Congress, saying its leaders who used to call "AAP a B-Team of the BJP and Kejriwal as Modi's 'younger brother'", have gone into "hibernation" today.

He said, "There are a litany of allegations against Rahul Gandhi but he is roaming scot free, taking out Bharat Jodo Yatra while we are facing a continuous attack...This has sent out one message that the BJP considers AAP its number one enemy. That's why it keeps making attempts to crush the AAP."

AAP's national ambitions for 2023

Riding high on its electoral success in Punjab and gains in Gujarat and Goa last year, the AAP is gearing up to contest in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan even though it had failed to open its account in the last assembly elections in these states.

While the AAP stormed to power in Punjab in March last year, it also managed to breach the BJP bastion of Gujarat by winning five seats with a nearly 13 per cent vote share in the polls held in December.

The AAP also gained a toehold in Goa, winning two assembly seats in the coastal state last year. The electoral gains in these three states also paved the way for the AAP to get recognised by the Election Commission (EC) as a national party.

Kejriwal is scheduled to visit these four states to launch his party's foray ahead of elections.

While Kejriwal is scheduled to launch his party's poll campaign in BJP-ruled Karnataka on March 4, he will visit Chhattisgarh and sound the AAP's poll bugle in the Congress-ruled state on March 5.

Kejriwal will launch his poll campaign in Rajasthan, currently ruled by the Congress, on March 13, and in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh on March 14.

"There is no change in the schedule so far. Kejriwal ji will visit Chhattisgarh on March 5," AAP in-charge of the state Sanjeev Jha, who is camping there for more than a month to lead the party's poll preparations, told PTI.

"There is no impact on the party's poll prospects with the arrest of Sisodia as he is a man with a clean image, known for the revolutionary transformation that he brought in school education in Delhi," he said.     

(With PTI inputs)