As the Bharatiya Janata Party celebrates its first year in power at the head of the Central government on Tuesday and the embattled Aam Aadmi Party finished 100 days in the saddle in Delhi state on Sunday, another anniversary last week went unnoticed: Mamata Banerjee’s fourth year as Bengal’s chief minister. If anyone should have been paying attention to that landmark, it should have been AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal. The West Bengal chief minister's  tenure should teach her Delhi counterpart that ideological battles are not to be confused with good governance and that Center-state relations are never black and white – rather a zillion shades of grey.


In May 2011, Banerjee smashed into smithereens the iron grip the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had on West Bengal. Her decades of political struggle finally bore fruit as the Trinamool Congress stormed into Writers Building and the euphoria in the state seemed to suggest that Banerjee’s mantra of poriborton – change – would finally undo the effects of more than three decades of Left rule. However, Banerjee continued to play the victim even as she was the one in power. She kept finding opposition where there was none and kept screaming about conspiracies when no one was hatching any.


On her government’s fourth anniversary she serves as a telling reminder that winning an election and walking the tightrope of governance are completely distinct areas. Kejriwal too aced the former, but risks walking down the same slippery path as Mamata Banerjee on the latter.


Banerjee and Kejriwal are a remarkable study of parallels. Both rose from non-political backgrounds, both built their parties from scratch, both have squeaky clean personal images, both are strong headed   individuals who made it to high office despite insurmountable odds.  While Kejriwal’s struggles are not a patch compared to the beatings and abuse Banerjee had to endure for years in the hands of CPI (M) thugs, he could do well by not following her path now that he is in power.


Here are some lessons Kejriwal could learn from Banerjee.


1) Media management is key
Mamata Banerjee was the media’s darling during the Singur and Nandigram agitations.  In the middle of the last decade, she essayed the dramatic revival of the Trinamool Congress on the back of these campaigns by farmers against forcible land acquisition. While the Left had a formidable cadre-based organisation, Banerjee had the media spreading her message. The Left crumbled because it failed to acknowledge the impact of electronic media. In a similar manner, Kejriwal has used the media to beat the BJP during election campaigns,  giving interviews to anyone willing to take them.


Ironically for both Kejriwal and Banerjee, the media became more antagonistic once they were in power. After much finger pointing and acquisitions, there was the usual boycotting of the media. Kejriwal needs to understand that the media will ask uncomfortable questions and some will level sensational allegations. But the solution doesn’t lie in sulking like a third grader. Media management is an art he must still master.


2) Don't smother the party
Both Kejriwal and Banerjee  have zero tolerance when it comes to being questioned by fellow party men. For both, freethinkers who speak their minds risk of being thrown out of the party. Much before AAP co-founders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav had their clash with Kejriwal, Banerjee had hit the headlines for giving Dinesh Trivedi the boot for presenting a practical rail budget and her squabbling with Mukul Roy remained in the headlines for months. This “my-way-or-the-highway” attitude reeks of political immaturity.


3) Work with the Centre
During his campaign to recapture Delhi, Kejriwal in a controversial move, claimed, “Modi for PM, Kejriwal for CM.”  The logic was simple – don’t challenge Modi, rather push him as a national leader and Kejriwal as Delhi leader. The ploy worked, 67 times over if you will.


But Kejriwal seems to have forgotten who the big boss is now. As he questions Modi over bureaucratic appointments and spars with the BJP over Delhi’s statehood, he would do well to remember that his government is at the center’s mercy on many issues.


 Banerjee had also tried to browbeat the BJP-led Central government into giving a special economic package to her state and even threatened to put Modi in handcuffs. But she is now mysteriously warming up to her bête noire, perhaps because assembly elections are just a year away or because the Central Bureau of Investiation has enough evidence against her party men in the Saradha scam.


Kejriwal has got all flustered at BJP’s strategy to stonewall his efforts to gain statehood for Delhi. He seems to have forgotten that this is just another political maneuver. Given the torment he’s being caused, it’s clear that the BJP has been successfully getting under the skin of the AAP government.


4) Keep your promises
Promises are fine for winning elections, but when you make grand sweeping commitments, they come to haunt you. Anyone who’s used worlds like Change (Obama), India Shining (Vajpayee), Acche Din (Modi) or Poriborton (Mamata) has regretted it. The burden of expectation becomes too heavy to bear.


Kejriwal’s primary promise was to weed out corruption and send the guilty policemen, businessmen and politicians to jail. While the prisons aren’t exactly overflowing, he’s kept his other poll commitment to reduce power bills – it’s a different matter that this was not done by exposing corruption by the transmission companies (as had been promised), rather via the backhand means of a massive subsidy.


As the months go by, Kejriwal will have to answer to a plethora of questions on education, health, safety and prices. But unlike Banerjee he will have to appear trying to solve the issue and not just play victim to forces beyond him and conspiracies above him.


 The people of Delhi voted Kejriwal to office twice, not because he could resolve the grey areas in the Constitution over bureaucratic appointments, rather over basic questions of livelihood and security. People in Bengal were largely left disappointed. Kejriwal still has time to reshape his approach thinking – before his government celebrates its fourth anniversary passes by.   


 Akash Banerjee is a broadcast professional and author of Tales from Shining and Sinking India, about how news channels deliver the big breaking story.