India, Feb. 8 -- Ten years is not a very long time in politics or in the life of a political party. It is normal for political preferences and fortunes of political parties to evolve over decades. The Congress's fortunes, for example, started declining in the 1960s and finally collapsed in the 2010s. The Jana Sangh, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) previous avatar, struggled with its politics throughout the 1960s and 1970s, had a disastrous new stint when it rechristened itself as the BJP in early 1980s, and finally started gaining ground from 1989 before establishing itself as the dominant hegemon a decade ago.

It is on this front that Aam Admi Party's (AAP) story is fascinating in fast-forward mode. It came out of nowhere in 2013 and wen...