Till Friday’s order by a particular court docket in Delhi dismissing the case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and discharging Arvind Kejriwal and different implicated AAP leaders, the get together’s future appeared unsure and bleak.

Kejriwal’s response to the decision—breaking down earlier than a swarm of tv cameras, and later tearing up once more at dwelling as he embraced his spouse Sunita and their kids, Harshita and Pulkit, captured the emotional toll the previous 4 years had taken on him.

“Narendra Modi and Amit Shah collectively hatched the most important political conspiracy to complete AAP. The sitting CM was dragged out of his home and put in jail. Kejriwal shouldn’t be corrupt. I’ve solely earned honesty in my life. At present, the court docket has stated that Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and AAP are sincere,” Kejriwal instructed reporters after strolling out of the court docket.

His emphasis on honesty underscored the get together’s greatest problem because the case dragged on—the taint of corruption. Whereas distinguished leaders dealing with corruption expenses is a routine incidence in Indian politics, it turned a very heavy burden for the AAP, on condition that the get together was born out of an anti-corruption motion in November 2012 and lacked a robust ideological glue to carry it collectively.

With the arrests of its leaders, starting with Sisodia in February 2023 and culminating within the arrest of Kejriwal in March 2024, the stain of corruption deepened because the AAP struggled to remain afloat. The truth is, Kejriwal’s arrest, the primary of a sitting chief minister in impartial India, threw the AAP into full disarray.

Aside from Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, distinguished AAP leaders Sanjay Singh and Satyendar Jain have been additionally arrested in money-laundering circumstances in October 2023 and in Could 2022.

Kejriwal’s refusal to step down as chief minister or hand over cost to a different chief meant that governance in Delhi, already strained by a bruising feud between the elected authorities and the Centre’s nominated Lieutenant Governor, descended into additional chaos.

By the point he walked out of jail in September 2024, after spending practically 5 months in custody, and named Atishi as his alternative as chief minister, it was too late for the AAP to regain a grip over its ‘Delhi Mannequin’ of governance.

5 months later, the Bharatiya Janata Occasion dislodged the AAP from energy in Delhi after a decade, sending Kejriwal right into a shell. It took months for Arvind Kejriwal to shake off the setback and switch his focus to Punjab, in a bid to retain energy in 2027 by any means essential.

“Till now, successful Punjab was our sole focus, as we didn’t anticipate the case collapsing so quickly. It was important for us to retain energy in a minimum of one state for the sake of survival. The court docket’s discharge order has come as an enormous morale booster for us. We at the moment are going all out not simply in Punjab, however in Gujarat too,” a senior AAP chief instructed ThePrint.

To make certain, Kejriwal has in latest weeks made a number of journeys to Gujarat, the place city native physique polls are scheduled for March. A spate of resignations—together with that of the AAP’s Gujarat farmer wing president, Raju Karpada—has shaken the get together in latest months.

AAP insiders say the speedy activity earlier than the management, armed with the authorized reprieve, is threefold: rebuilding cadre morale, convincing voters that its core plank of fresh politics stays unsullied, and reclaiming the governance narrative in Punjab.

“The BJP has achieved what it needed. The very fact stays we’ve got misplaced Delhi and it’s more and more troublesome to win again energy as elections have grow to be extremely transactional. Our problem will likely be to ascertain how the whole marketing campaign in opposition to us was baseless because the court docket refused to a lot as take cognisance of the cost sheet,” a celebration functionary instructed ThePrint.

(Edited by Tony Rai)