Former Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Nandini Oza in an incisive social media post has said that while many were “surprisingly shocked” by Raghav Chadha leaving AAP to join BJP, she herself was “shocked long long ago” when colleagues from people’s movements, including former associates from NBA, joined AAP.
According to her, the assumption that mass resistance could automatically convert into a vote bank was misguided, and the experiment left a “damaging imprint” on NBA without critical assessment of its costs. “Whatever some of us tried to say was dismissed as inconsequential, and those raising concerns were treated as persona non grata,” she wrote.
Oza argued that AAP’s politics undermined grassroots struggles, pointing to its support for large dams in Himachal Pradesh to supply water to Delhi. She recalled that activists who contested elections under AAP failed to secure even modest vote shares, some forfeiting deposits.
“Despite this, I continued to raise my voice against AAP politics, as I saw it as directly undermining people’s movements and their politics,” she said, citing her open letter to Atishi Marlena in 2019.
Her critique also extended to AAP’s handling of gender justice. In 2014, Oza wrote to Atishi—then a member of AAP’s internal committee under the Vishakha guidelines—highlighting derogatory videos of the then senior leader Kumar Vishwas.
While Atishi acknowledged the concerns, Oza said the party failed to act, instead fielding Vishwas in the high-profile Amethi contest against Rahul Gandhi and Smriti Irani. “This came as a setback to me – more so in the backdrop of no response on the anti-women-sexist remarks,” Oza noted.
Cultural activist Mallika Sarabhai also raised objections, describing Vishwas’s views as “sexist and anti-gay, and anti-minority,” but AAP ignored these concerns. Oza (photo) argued that such decisions revealed the party’s insensitivity to women’s dignity and equality.
The issue resurfaced in 2019, when Atishi herself faced a “deplorable abusive-sexist attack” during her Lok Sabha campaign. Oza condemned the incident, writing: “My heart truly goes out to her and all the women in public life who have been subjected to sexist and abusive remarks.” She urged AAP to draw lessons from the episode and act “quickly and sternly” against anti-women mindsets within its ranks.
Oza’s reflections connect three threads: Chadha’s defection, the political compromises of AAP that weakened grassroots movements, and its failure to confront misogyny within its own leadership. Together, they form a broader indictment of the party’s trajectory—from its origins in India Against Corruption to its present controversies.
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