A person is more powerful than the party in power. How else would you locate the Bharatiya Janata Party’s ascendancy under Narendra Modi and Aam Aadmi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal? Well, both have many commonalities and similarities though the level might differ.
Both are well-versed in connecting with the hearts and minds of the people knowing how to conduct people’s views, ideas, and opinions; otherwise, they would have never re-elected Modi in 2019, and Kejriwal in 2020. Modi comes out sharper in articulating and addressing his electorate’s core needs as for his ability to intelligently recognize their choices by giving it a direction and destiny. Safai Abhiyan, Ujjwala Yojana, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Atma Nirbhar Bharat are some of the glaring instances of his policy architecture and approach.
Kejriwal is intelligent in proposing his social welfare schemes read affordable healthcare and quality education, fulfilling his broader audience’s objectives and goals. Waving off electricity bills and a subsidy for empowering the weaker sections of the population were some of his gestures made in order to earn the goodwill of the large population of the people segregated in a community of caste and class.
Maybe we would like to remind ourselves that politics is all about organizing and mobilizing strategies and resources individually and organizationally skillfully and tactfully in order to achieve and accomplish the ideas of authority, order and command.
I believe both Modi and Kejriwal succeeded from their determination, dedication and devotion as role agents and responsible representatives of the people but with a scant disregard for criticism and opposition from within and outside their individual parties- BJP and AAP.
Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan were humiliated and embarrassed by the top brass of the ruling AAP before being sacked from their duty as key party functionaries and planners. Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh etc. were completely alienated and sidelined from their parent party- BJP, after Narendra Modi and Amit Shah took charge of the helm of affairs.
Being popular can be one thing, and becoming an authoritarian can be another. Sadly, if you are popular as a mass leader, there is no offence in being authoritarian as for the propagation of hyper myth, propaganda, populism, and rhetoric essential for combining perceptions with the practice of the use and abuse of political power public office. We have become prone to be inspired by anything that is handy and catchy as has become the chief characteristic of our politics beginning 2014 and onwards.