00:00Life really has come full circle for Arvind K. Jeeval. The man who became a political
00:09leader on the basis of an anti-corruption movement is today in jail on corruption charges
00:15arrested by the Enforcement Directorate just weeks before the Lok Sabha elections.
00:20There are several aspects to this story. One is of course the fact that the ED has been
00:25proactively going after opposition politicians and particularly ahead of the general election
00:31it's created a very uneven and unfair playing field. The second aspect of it is the politics
00:36of the Aam Aadmi Party itself. As I said, K. Jeeval's politics was born from andholans
00:43or protests from an anti-corruption movement that began with Anna Hazare's fast back
00:48in 2011. The AAP within years emerged as a formidable political force and in the last
00:54decade has in fact gone on to become a much bigger force than many had anticipated. It
01:01decimated the Congress in Delhi and it also won the state of Punjab comprehensively proving
01:07that it could possibly be the biggest challenger to the BJP not now, not even in the medium
01:13term, but perhaps in the long run. Maybe that explains why the BJP has never really liked
01:19Arvind K. Jeeval, his politics of governance, schools, mahalla clinics, etc. But what happens
01:27to the AAP from here will be interesting to watch. They can either turn Arvind K. Jeeval's
01:32arrest into a political opportunity and hopefully be able to gather the opposition together
01:38and mobilize sympathy for him or this may actually end up being in a sense the end of
01:45the road for the AAP. If they aren't able to convince people, if they do end up losing
01:49the elections badly or if there's no clear path that the party has charted out for itself
01:55in a post-K. Jeeval scenario because he's going to be out of action for some time, for
01:59at least the next several months. So what does the AAP do from here? We'll just have to wait and see.
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