Even if Kejriwal manages to perform in Delhi, he will survive just as a male Mayawati: the leader of a regional party that once promised a new high in politics but destroyed itself by stooping to new lows.

A party that owes its existence to the Lokpal movement kicks out its own. A leader, who claims to have entered politics for ‘service’ and not for ‘power’, gets into an ugly power struggle with his co-founders. A chief minister who resigns after a spat with the Congress on a matter of principle, bargains in private for a deal to reclaim the chair. A man who calls himself a ‘chhota aadmi’ with no aukaat, labels his colleagues as kaminey and ‘wo saale.’ A party that sells itself to voters as being different from others turns out to be a party with irreconcilable differences.

And we are still asking if Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP will survive this public stripping of the mask!

Many people argue Kejriwal will lose nothing because of the ongoing drama in the party; if he performs in Delhi, AAP will once again become popular and the internal fight will be forgotten. AAP apologists are convinced Indian voters have a short memory and after Paanch Saal Kejriwal, everything will be forgiven.

Had Rajiv Gandhi still been around, he would have reminded Kejriwal of an important lesson of Indian democracy: voters forgive everything except betrayal of their hope. Every time a ‘Mr Clean’ lets them down by turning out to be an imposter, he is inevitably booted out by the disillusioned voters.

Today’s Kejriwal is a vastly different man from the person who once said, if politics is dirty (keechad), we will get into it to clean it. Now, he is a man covered from head to toe in the dirt he once promised to clean. Each word he said earlier, every line of his that had elicited applause, hope, cheer and joyful tears, now sounds like a nasty joke.

Imagine Kejriwal, for instance, promising an independent and powerful Lokpal if he wins the next election after throwing out L Ramdas. Or, visualize the response next time he says he is not there for satta but for seva after clinging to every position of power in his party, or that he will seek the opinion of volunteers and people before taking an important decision after kicking out dissenters from his darbar like a medieval emperor.

I foresee just sniggers, boos and angry protests.

In the new, deformed version of Kejriwal’s AAP, swaraj has been replaced by autocracy, internal democracy by sycophancy, sacrifice by lust, idealism by political pragmatism and hope by dismay and disbelief. No, this is not the party and the man people had voted for just a few weeks ago.

Somehow, Kejriwal has found the concoction to turn Dr Jekyll into Hyde. Those who believe Kejriwal’s performance will be the potion that transforms him back into the genial, likable Jekyll forget a simple fact: his rise was based on the belief that he is different from other politician and that AAP will bring about positive changes in Indian politics. But, as Omar Abdullah tweeted, Kejriwal and his party have become like others.

The AAP caught the nation’s fancy also because it appeared to be the place where intellectuals, activists, bankers, entrepreneurs, artistes, academics and public figures were headed. AAP and Kejriwal’s political evangelism created the impression that politics was the new religion for the honest and the idealist. Watching these dreamy-eyed idealists being kicked out one after the other from Kejriwal’s tent, some branded with unsavory epithets like kaminey and gaddar, only the really brave or the gullible will think of joining AAP now. This is indeed the end of the aam aadmi’s party and his dreams of clean, honest politics.

AAP’s current trajectory appears similar to the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Several years ago, Kanshiram had formed the party with the aim of bringing about social justice, empowering dalits and becoming a pan-Indian representative of the underprivileged and the oppressed. Within a few years, it morphed into Mayawati’s personal fief and the pursuit of power became its only ideology.

Mayawati once dreamt of becoming the PM of India, her party was seen as a threat to other national parties. But today its influence is confined to just one state and its appeal is limited to a very small section. And this too is disappearing fast with the reemergence of national parties in the state politics.

Even if Kejriwal manages to perform in Delhi, he will survive just as a male Mayawati: the leader of a regional party that once promised a new high in politics but destroyed itself by stooping to new lows.