There are no permanent friends or foes in politics, they say. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal is someone who believes it to the last letter.  

With barely three months to go for the UP Assembly elections 2022, as the political parties are frantically exploring alliances and tie-ups, Kejriwal’s AAP has been cosying up with Akhilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party (SP). On Wednesday, AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh met Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and told news agency ANI that the two leaders held strategic discussions on common issues of Uttar Pradesh in a bid to get rid of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

“To free Uttar Pradesh from the misrule of the BJP, there was a fruitful meeting with the national president of Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadavji. A discussion was held on similar issues. Many thanks to Akhilesh Yadav Ji. Uttar Pradesh has to be freed from the dictatorship of BJP,” he tweeted post the meeting.

While the meeting has triggered fresh speculations of a possible alliance between the two parties ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, one cannot help but remember Kejriwal’s allegations ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Barely three months ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Arvind Kejriwal released his list of “most corrupt politicians” in the country. That list prominently featured the name of SP founder and Akhilesh’s father Mulayam Singh Yadav among others. Releasing the list at the AAP national executive committee meeting, Kejriwal had named Mulayam, reportedly saying, “I am presenting the list in front of you, and you decide whether these people should be voted or not.”

“There should not be a single corrupt person in the Parliament,” he had said back then.

Starting out as an anti-graft activist under India Against Corruption (IAC), Kejriwal had taken a strong stance against corruption before and after he joined politics and launched AAP. As an activist when he was conducting rallies ostensibly to expose corruption, Akhilesh wasn’t spared either.

At a rally in UP’s Farrukhabad in November 2012, Kejriwal assailed the then UP CM for being hand in gloves with Congress leader Salman Khurshid, whom he accused of embezzling the public money.

Kejriwal questioned restarting the probe into the alleged misappropriation of funds in the Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust managed by Khurshid and his family, when an inquiry had been completed and a report submitted on June 12, 2012. Kejriwal had then said there was a quid pro quo between Akhilesh Yadav and Khurshid. “Efforts are being made to sweep the matter under the carpet as Akhilesh Yadav, [Samajwadi Party leader] Mulayam Singh and Salman Khurshid are one on this count.” 

However, why single out SP and Akhilesh when Kejriwal has been willing to ally with almost everyone he has accused of corruption in the past.

When he launched AAP in 2012, it was with the intent to contest the Delhi Assembly polls in 2013. The campaign was a high-pitched one against the Congress and particularly against the then Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit, against whom secured an impressive victory. However, his party came second after the BJP. The saffron party didn’t have an absolute majority and refused to form a minority government. So the onus fell on AAP and Kejriwal, who became the CM and formed the government with the support of the Congress. Call it the mother of ironies. Kejriwal’s blow-hot blow-cold relationship has been on for a while now. The Gandhis were on the top of the ‘corrupt leaders’ list, yet he sought a pre-poll alliance with the Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Delhi.

In 2018, Kejriwal attended the swearing-in ceremony of Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy — again someone who featured in Kejriwal’s list of ‘most corrupt politicians’.

Another case in point is Sharad Pawar, again someone he had named in his ‘list’. He attacked PM Modi in November 2016 right after demonetisation saying, “Yesterday, PM Modi took blessings of Sharad Pawar to fight against black money, no irony can be bigger than that,” he had reportedly said. So incensed was the NCP leadership that they threatened him with a defamation suit.

Come 2019, he had no qualms in holding hands with Pawar at Mamata Banerjee’s rally in Kolkata as a grand show of unity against PM Modi. Not just Pawar, Kejriwal had also named National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and DMK leader MK Stalin in the ‘list’, again people with whom he did not mind sharing the dais at the Kolkata rally. He went after Lalu Yadav in the fodder scam but had no qualms in hugging the RJD supremo at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s swearing-in ceremony in November 2015.

For all his high-pitched and sometimes even reckless attacks on politicians, he was largely an outcast when the initial talks of ‘united opposition’ against the BJP were forming. Sonia Gandhi called for a meeting of all opposition leaders except Kejriwal to decide on a ‘consensus candidate’ for the Presidential elections in 2017. All the hugs aside, when RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav held the massive show of strength through his ‘BJP Bhagao Desh Bachao’ rally in Patna, Kejriwal was again not invited. In fact, he had been friendless in politics until 2018 when Kumaraswamy reached out to him.

In the days and years to come, it just might behove Kejriwal to think before launching off on rather vocal attacks and allegations against politicians. After all, there is no permanent friend or foe in politics.