Arvind Kejriwal was on a collision course with the central government from the day he took office as Delhi chief minister. It was a mandate for change, he won 67 of 70 Assembly seats and literally wiped out the two national parties – the Congress was decimated, whereas the BJP barely managed to retain three seats.

He has his own ideas of ‘Swaraj’ – to decentralise decision-making, greater involvement of the people, and taking the government to the grassroots. He was in no mood to budge from his agenda, for he thought he had the historic mandate.

But then there was a complication, a significant one. Delhi is not a state per se, it’s a Union Territory with a legislature. The Delhi Police, for instance, are not under the Delhi government, nor is the Delhi Development Authority. Therefore, he was supposed to create a cordial working relationship with the central government, particularly with PM Narendra Modi.

Soon after being elected as CM, Kejriwal, accompanied by his deputy Manish Sisodia, called upon Modi and told him, “Let’s work together to make Delhi better.” He also soon realised the hard way that the Delhi CM has less power, whereas the Lieutenant Governor (LG) has more power compared to their respective offices in other states.

1) War against corruption: One of the main planks of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was war against corruption. Kejriwal activated a defunct government department called the Anti-Corruption Bureau or ACB. In his first stint as CM for 49 days, he ordered an FIR against two former petroleum ministers and Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani in a natural gas case.

When he became the CM for the second time, one of the first turf wars was between him and then LG Najeeb Jung. It was triggered by the appointment of Delhi Police joint commissioner MK Meena as head of the ACB in June 2015 in place of additional commissioner of police SS Yadav, who was handpicked by Kejriwal a month before. Since then, Meena has initiated many investigations against some of Kejriwal’s cabinet colleagues for alleged acts of impropriety. Nothing came out of them.

In the meantime, the home ministry issued a notification and barred the ACB from pursuing any case pertaining to officials of the central government. Thus, the corruption plank was effectively scuttled.

2) Abusing the Prime Minister: As the year progressed, the turf war between Kejriwal and Jung turned uglier. Kejriwal continued to speak his mind openly and took on Modi directly. In December 2015, Kejriwal’s office was raided by the CBI after a case was registered against Rajendra Kumar, his principal secretary, on allegations of abusing his official position by “favouring a particular firm in the last few years in getting tenders from Delhi government departments”.

Kejriwal accused the Modi government of resorting to vendetta politics, and famously tweeted, “CBI raids my office… When Modi could not handle me politically, he resorts to this cowardice. Modi is a coward and psychopath.”

3) Delhi High Court rules L-G is the boss: In August 2016, the Delhi High Court asserted, based on reading of Article 239 and Article 239AA of the Constitution that Delhi continues to be a Union Territory under the administrative control of the LG. In matters in which the Assembly can make laws, the ministry’s decisions should be communicated to the LG and should be implemented only if LG agrees. The Delhi government’s decision to probe alleged irregularities in the functioning of DDCA and the CNG fitness scam was thus deemed illegal as these orders were issued without seeking LG’s consent, so were the policy directions to the Electricity Regulatory Commission for compensation to people for disruption in power supply. This judgment by the Delhi High Court brought instant relief to certain powerful people, curbing Kejriwal’s powers manifold.

4) The new LG delays decisions: Anil Baijal, former Union home secretary and member of the influential Vivekananda International Foundation, took charge as the new LG in December 2016. It was a relief after constant bickering between his predecessor and the CM. The turf war between ‘the elected and the non-elected’ continued, but tempers were lower. The white paper on the performance of the LG prepared by the Kejriwal government and tabled in the state Assembly, early in April, alleges that the LG was slow in discharging his duties. As a result, of the 32 policy initiatives sent to the LG for approval since he took charge, only 15 were approved. And the average delay in approving projects is 157 days or about five months.

Some of the key schemes affected were higher education scheme – 402 days’ delay and Mohalla clinics in schools – 146 days’ delay. Some of the other key initiatives still await approval, like the one proposed to establish the Delhi Healthcare Corporation, a public limited company to provide clinical, non-clinical, administrative and support services.

5) Debacle in the local elections: The BJP gave a deadly blow to the AAP in the three civic bodies’ elections in May 2017, retaining control for the third consecutive time. In the North MCD, the BJP won 64 wards, AAP 21 and Congress 15. In the south, the BJP won 70, AAP 16 and 12 went to the Congress; in east Delhi, 47 went to BJP, 11 to AAP and three to the Congress. Kejriwal acknowledged, “We made mistakes but we will introspect and course correct. Time to go back to the drawing board. To not evolve will be silly.” One of the things he did, or stopped doing after the local elections, was the verbal attacks on the prime minister.

6) Apology spree: There are about 30 defamation cases pending against Kejriwal in various courts of the country, mostly by his political contemporaries. Many of them filed criminal defamation cases against him, and the most talked about was by finance minister Arun Jaitley. The AAP chief has apologised to all of them. Many political commentators, even his detractors were privately of the view that Kejriwal is maturing as a politician. It’s pragmatic not to fight a losing battle.

7) Sacking of MLAs and advisers: Ever since Kejriwal took office, he has had strained relations with the Delhi Police. In the first two years of office, Delhi Police arrested 13 AAP MLAs for various offenses ranging from forgery, molestation, kidnapping or rioting. Most of the MLAs were let off on bail as soon as the matter reached court, but for two notable cases. The court pulled up the Delhi Police several times for their shoddy investigation that led to the arrest of legislators. Then, 20 MLAs of AAP were disqualified for holding ‘office of profit’ on January 19 this year by the outgoing chief election commissioner, Achal Kumar Joti – who was also Gujarat’s chief secretary when Modi was the state CM – just a week before he was to retire. In a major embarrassment to the Election Commission, the Delhi High Court declared the disqualification of 20 MLAs ‘bad in law’ and a violation of ‘natural justice’ as no oral hearing was given to them by the commission before disqualifying them.

Before the dust could settle in this matter, earlier this month, nine of the advisers to various ministers of Delhi government, including Atishi Marlena who was spearheading educational reforms in Delhi, were dismissed by the LG on the objection of the home ministry, as “no prior approval of the central government has been taken for creation of said posts.”

8) Assault on the chief secretary: On February 19, the Delhi chief secretary, Anshu Prakash, was allegedly assaulted by two AAP MLAs when he was attending a mid-night emergency meeting at the residence of the CM. The bureaucracy has since revolted and the Delhi government functions merely on written communications.

After searching Kejriwal’s residence, the police claim there were discrepancies in the timing of CCTV footage. Kejriwal’s key aide Bibhav Kumar was questioned for three hours by the Delhi Police a few days ago. AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj while assuring ongoing full cooperation with the probe, stressed, “on the same day, our minister was manhandled and his staff assaulted in full view of CCTV cameras within the Secretariat….. video evidence of the chief secretary instigating them… but probe on that front has been lax.” Insiders in the party claim the Delhi Police are trying to implicate Kejriwal directly in the assault case. If they manage to do that, Kejriwal’s job will be in serious jeopardy.

This article was first published in the Patriot.