Arvind Kejriwal’s move to resign as the Delhi Chief Minister after walking out of jail, is not only aimed at sending his political opponents on the back foot by making the next Assembly elections in the national capital like a referendum on his honesty, but also an attempt to re-establish a firm grip on his party. It is an open secret that differences had surfaced within the party when Kejriwal was in jail on alleged excise scam. Several top leaders of the party fought hard to fill the vacuum created by his absence, only to be prevented by others. Even the entry of his wife Sunita Kejriwal was not taken kindly by some party leaders. Furthermore, the rebellion by Swati Maliwal, one of the trusted lieutenants of Kejriwal, dented the image of the party as a cohesive unit. The AAP supremo had his hands full with problems that needed to be solved urgently even before his release. By choosing to resign even after getting a regular bail, Kejriwal has sent out a message that he is not at all power-hungry and would let the electorate prove his honesty. By doing so, he is in a way re-branding his political image as well as that of his party.
Now the million dollar question is: Will Kejriwal be able to reap a good harvest from this unprecedented move? In the general elections held this year, the BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi to register a spectacular success against the APP-Congress force, though the combined opposition managed to stop the saffron brigade’s juggernaut in most of the states. This was despite Kejriwal, who was free on interim bail, campaigning for the party. The saffron party appears to be eager to repeat the general election performance in the assembly polls too, having engaged former union minister Smriti Irani and a ‘young turk’ Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of late Sushma Swaraj, to woo the electorate. While Kejriwal’s magic appears to be fading, going by the recent elections to the lower house of the Parliament, compounded by the likelihood of not coming to an understanding with its INDIA ally Congress for the Assembly polls, one can’t ignore his charm and strategies. Once again, he seems to have decided to play the ‘honesty card’, which responsible for his meteoric rise as a crusader against corruption. Besides that, he has dispelled any doubt about favouring family over party by choosing Atishi Marlena as his successor. In a nutshell, he has taken a calculated risk to protect his citadel.