Decode Politics: How Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest may play out politically — for AAP, Opposition

The arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal less than a month before the Lok Sabha elections opens up the door for several possible scenarios and raises crucial questions for the AAP and the larger anti-BJP Opposition bloc.

What happens to AAP?

If Kejriwal does not get relief from the courts soon enough, the AAP is likely to face an existential crisis as it will in the short term lose the services of a leader who has no peer in the party in terms of mass appeal. This is likely to pose a serious challenge to the party and in a state like Punjab, it may even make voters sway more towards the Congress.

Moreover, if the BJP comes across as unaffected by the recent arrests of the AAP chief, former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s (BRS) K Kavitha, more leaders from Opposition parties and fence-sitting regional parties may look to jump on to the BJP bandwagon.

Can AAP upend the Delhi script?

For the last 10 years, the politics of Delhi has seen voters make distinctive choices depending on the election they are voting in. They have supported Arvind Kejriwal in the Assembly elections, backing his welfare politics pitch that has seen work being done to improve the government school and healthcare systems.

As the numbers show, those who voted for the AAP in the Assembly elections chose the Narendra Modi-led BJP in the Lok Sabha elections, contested largely on national issues and not local ones in Delhi. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP won all seats in Delhi, securing 46.6% votes while the AAP, which secured 33% of the votes, failed to open its account. The Congress vote share was 15%. Months later, in the Assembly elections, the AAP secured 54.5% of the votes to win 67 seats out of 70 while the