Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal

Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal has accused the BJP of trying to woo his party's legislators and asked the party to dissolve the Delhi Assembly, which has been in suspended animation since his resignation as chief minister in February.

In an exclusive interview with Aaj Tak, Kejriwal said people of Delhi were angry with the party but it was "positive anger, like the anger one feels at one's own people".

He also called his decision to resign as chief minister "a political blunder."

Here are edited excerpts of the interview:

Q: What will happen to AAP?

A: We are not doing anything for ourselves. History is a witness that when the BJP came to Parliament, they got two seats. The AAP, which is an one-year-old party, got four seats. In Delhi, our vote share has gone up by 5 per cent, i.e. from 29 to 34 per cent. And that too at a time when almost all parties, given the wave in the country, whatever the wave was, were wiped out-when the BSP was wiped out, the SP was wiped out, the JD-U was wiped out; in this situation, to get four seats (is no mean achievement). On all Delhi seats, we were on number two. If we do an impartial analysis, I do not consider it a defeat.

The second things is that the AAP has come in this country to change politics. And we have done a lot in that sense. Like we used to say that criminals should not be in politics. Today, Modiji is saying the same thing, that the cases of these criminals should be fast-tracked. The issues we used to raise have now started becoming part of the mainstream politics.

Q: Then what will be the relevance of AAP, if Modi is saying that criminals and corrupt should be removed from Lok Sabha?

A: This is just being spoken about now. Let him do it first. There are many things - corruption has to be removed, inflation has to be reduced. Lots of things have to be done. If all things become well, if politics improves, that will be good. We won't be needed.

Q: Questions are being raised after the defeat. Yogendra Yadav writes a letter saying Kejrial is the party supremo, he does not listen to anyone. Shazia Ilmi, the party's well-known face, leaves the party. Have all leaders been flummoxed due to defeat? Is there a lot of chaos in the party?

A: Questions were always being raised within the party by senior people as well as party workers. Like you saw, the day after I returned from jail, I called a meeting of all volunteers. They had a lot of questions and I answered all the questions. They wrote an email to me. When they wrote the email, the poor guys did not realise that the mail will be hacked and will be shared all around. They wrote to me in confidence. When you write in private, you sometimes use strong words. But if you know that the letter will be made public, you try to be diplomatic. All the questions they raised were discussed in the national executive. They were important questions. After that, they themselves said this at a press conference. Someone said you were called party supremo and they said if I was in the Congress and had written a similar letter to Rahul Gandhiji, I would not have been sitting at this press conference.

Q: People said you are on the back foot and that is why to show your magnanimity you spoke about bringing back Shazia Ilmi; you called Yogendra Yadav your elder brother.

A: If we do good, we are on the back foot? This is wrong. (Laughing)

Q: Will AAP fight elections in Haryana and Maharashtra?

A: The party has not decided about it yet.

Q: The letter Manish Sisodia wrote said that you wanted to stay limited to Delhi, do politics in Delhi only. You went into the Lok Sabha polls on the suggestion of party leaders?

A: During the Lok Sabha elections, I had said within the party and once or twice during interviews too that we should not fight the Lok Sabha polls. And in January I said all party people had turned against me. I had felt that we should fight on only Delhi's Lok Sabha seats or on seats in two-three states around Delhi. We were not in a position to expand it to the entire country. It was the party's decision and it shows that I do not have the upper hand. The party has the upper hand. (Smiling)

Q: Many people say that you take decisions in haste and then you repent - be it bringing down your own government, be it contesting the Lok Sabha polls or be it going to jail. You also took back that decision. Is there a political immaturity?

A: We admit that we do not know politics much. We are like you. We are aam aadmi of this country. But we are learning and slowly we will learn politics.

Q: Do you repent that you should not have brought down the government?

A: There are two things. There was a consultation that we should resign if they do not let us present or pass the Lokpal Bill. It was our assessment. The decision could be wrong and we can discuss it. In retrospect, it is easy to say that decision was right or wrong. It was discussed in party, among MLAs and in the cabinet. And I had discussed it individually with several party leaders at my house and at CM office. But we had thought, when all of us were taking the decision, that if we cannot get Lokpal Bill passed and continue to be in the seat, people would say: See, Kejriwal has become power-greedy. We thought people will be very angry if we did not resign. How could we have known that people would be so angry with us for quitting? We never even dreamt of it!

Q: Are you repenting?

A: Now it seems it was a political blunder. We should have consulted the masses too before resigning, like we had asked them before we formed the government. People would have said that they did not want us to resign. I did not find one person who said we did not work in the 49 days we were in power. Everyone said you did a lot of work in just 49 days. They said they have never seen a government that did so much work in 49 days. We halved electricity prices; there was 24-hour power supply; we made water free; there was a huge drop in corruption; there were medicines in government hospitals. Tell me which government has done so much work in 49 days?

Then I thought why people were so angry after we resigned. What wrong did we do? And now when I am interacting with people, I get to know there were two reasons behind people's anger.

One is that the benefits people were getting suddenly stopped. It was like a fleeting dream they saw in 49 days and then it ended. There was subsidy will March 31, power bills had gone down and from April 1, they went up again.

The second reason is the return of corruption. Many people told us that the sales tax department officials came for a raid after we resigned and they said: 'Call your Kejriwal.' They were taunted and money was taken from them.

Q: And yet AAP failed to get a single seat in Delhi?

A: Look at the wave blowing across the nation. What was the political atmosphere across the country? To stand in the middle of that storm and come second and increase your vote share, it was a big thing.

I admit that people in Delhi are angry. The anger is positive, the anger you feel at people you consider your own.

Q: Is it people's anger that Arvind Kejriwal is not doing dharnas but writing letters to Narendra Modi?

A: We will do dharna if there is a need. if neded, we will do a dharna tomorrow. It is not about always being in news. There are many ways (to make your piont) and staying in news is not one of them.

All our MLAs along with Manish Sisodia went to meet Harsh Vradhan and I wrote a letter to Narendra Modi yesterday. Now let's see. People are saying, "If anyone can pull up the power companies, it is Kejriwal." Pick up the newspapers of February this year and the headline was 'Power crisis over'. The power crisis was over in 24 hours. You have to show strictness. Today in Delhi, power minister Piyush Goyal is himself saying, "There is no paucity of power." If there is no power shortage, then what is lacking? The power companies are blackmailing. Why has the BJP joined hands with power companies? Why are they not strict with them like we were?

Q: The point is people are feeling harassed. And you say that if you were in power, you could have found a solution. So like you tried to resolve the crisis in the party, why don't you show magnanimity and go ahead and ask the Congress to join hands with you and form the government again in Delhi?

A: But I want to ask why aren't the BJP people dissolving the Assembly? They should dissolve the Assembly. We resigned in February. They could have held the elections immediately and got an elected government. At that time, then UPA government did not hold elections. Now the BJP is not holding polls. And the BJP people are contacting our MLAs. They have contacted our eight MLAs in the last four-five days and they are trying to break them away. But they do not know the stuff AAP MLAs are made of. Those who were contacted, come and tell me everything.

Q: You are accusing the BJP?

A: They are doing it, trying to break them away but no one from our party is willing to break away. This is not right. Is this the way the BJP people want to form the government? They should dissolve the Assembly immediately and call for fresh elections. There will be a new government. People's problems will be solved. But why isn't the BJP doping this, tell me?

Q: So you won't form a government with Congress's support?

A: There is no such proposal. There are no such talks going on, as is being reported in the papers.

Q: Will your four MPs be able to do anything in Parliament since the BJP has a full majority?

A: Four are enough. As they say, four people are enough to carry a bier - (our MPs can be instrumental for) the funeral of corruption, of price rise. And Guru Gobind Singh said one Sikh is equal to 1.25 lakh others. Our four are equal to five lakh.

Q: So there is no hope of AAP forming the government?

A: I see no such possibility. And I appeal to the BJP to give up trying to break away our MLAs, dissolve the Assembly, call elections and accept people's mandate once again.