A broad hint from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is that he would enter the ring and challenge Narendra Modi in the next Parliamentary polls in 2014. He has held out the slogan, Make India Number 1, and is planning a nation-wide tour to drum up support and feed his own ambition to be the Prime Minister. He is putting his ‘best foot forward’ when ‘aspirants’ like Mamata Banerjee have run for cover, Sharad Pawar was floored in Maharashtra and Nitish Kumar is making a laughing stock of himself in Bihar. It’s natural that Kejriwal senses an opportunity. Yet, consider the fact that despite his popularity in Delhi, the AAP could not win a single parliament seat in the national capital in 2019 and his party does not have any representation in the Lok Sabha. What fuels his ambition, still, is the fact that his is the only regional party that runs governments in more than one state.
A positive aspect about Kejriwal is that, unlike any other regional politician, he runs a people-friendly and mostly corruption-free government. In today’s India, this is a great credit. Yet, the problem is our national character that finds eloquent display in elections in state after state. The electorate is often less enthused by good governance and more by show, bluff and bluster. True, there are also times when a government that went terribly wrong – as in the case of UPA-II vis-à-vis corruption – was voted out. This apart, Kejriwal is still the leader of a small regional party that has no presence in most states. Had he had the clout he thinks he has, AAP would in the past 12 years have made a pan-India presence. His first job as a politician aspiring to run the nation is to precisely do this, rather than making a Mamata Banerjee out of himself.
A national appeal is the first and foremost requirement for a politician aspiring to run the nation; more so for the leader of a regional party. Narendra Modi rising from the CM’s post to PM’s chair was by virtue of his selection as the nominee of a national party, the BJP. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi may have his flaws; yet, as long as he represents an omnipresent national political establishment like the Congress, he remains heads and shoulders above regional chieftains in the national political sweepstakes. The Congress party has a wealth of experienced and talented leaders to run a government; not so the regional parties. Fact is also that no regional leader can ever run a stable government at the Centre.
