Arvind Kejriwal has stoked yet another controversy and declared yet another enemy by accusing media of being “sold out” to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and threatening to jail all “offending” journalists if his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were to come to power in the April-May Indian general elections.

At a fund-raising remark in Nagpur last week Kejriwal said media persons were promoting Modi and remarked thus: “If our government comes to power then we will set an inquiry into this. And along with media people, all will be sent to jail.” This video footage, showing the intolerant side of Kejriwal, surfaced last Friday and triggered outrage in media and political circles.

Why does Kejriwal behave like this? Here is an attempted explanation.

Kejriwal is an unconventional politician who believes in the George W. Bush’s philosophy that if you are not with us then you are against us. He sees an enemy in anyone who does not agree with him.

Kejriwal has taken on anyone and everyone, including top politicians across the board and the Ambanis. The problem is that those who have been at the wrong end of the stick of Kejriwal have done precious little in calling his hoax.

He blames politicians for the malaise that India is suffering from — not an invalid argument. But the problem is his final determination, which paints all politicians with a black brush. But there are no remedial steps suggested by him, which can cleanse the political apparatus of the nation. If he has done so, either the nation is deaf and dumb or he has failed to clearly say what is wrong where.

Similarly, his witch-hunt against the corporate honchos, including the Ambanis, betrays the attitude that making money is bad. After all, how would one explain his going hammer and tongs against Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani?

This leads us to a vital question: Who is Arvind Kejriwal? Well, the answer may well be akin to the tale of five blind men trying to figure out an elephant.

If you are an Aam Aadmi Party supporter or sympathizer, Kejriwal, the founder of the common man-centric AAP, is a messiah who is fighting a lone battle to rid India of its number one problem: Corruption.

If you are a supporter of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), currently the rightist main opposition party but hoping to be India’s ruling party by May 2014, then Kejriwal is a “Congress agent” and the “B team” of the ruling party.

If you happen to be a Congress party loyalist then Kejriwal is nothing but an anarchist, a disruptive force, and a megalomaniac on a horse back who wants to change things in a jiffy with his agitationist brand of politics without caring a fig for legal and constitutional norms.

This enigma wrapped in a puzzle, the man called Arvind Kejriwal, set the Indian politics aflame when he resigned on Feb.14 as chief minister of Delhi after 49 days of a roller coaster ride as the chief minister.

Days before he resigned as Delhi chief minister he had cleverly initiated his larger political agenda by registering First Information Reports (FIRs) for launching criminal proceedings against his predecessor and Congress leader Sheila Dikshit on one hand and Union Petroleum and Gas Minister Veerappa Moily and Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani on the other, both on charges of corruption.

Kejriwal made swift and calculative moves in the run up to his resignation as Delhi chief minister. He found the CM’s chair like an albatross round his neck and tried his best to break free so that he could focus on the larger, long-term political goals — winning the upcoming elections for the 16th Lok Sabha with at least 100 seats.

He must be the first and the only Indian politician who has shown uninhibited desperation for kicking power. But there is a method in this madness: He is kicking power to get even more power!

After all, what is the chief minister of a state when he can make a serious dash for the top post of the country, the prime minister, in the coming months? This seems to be Kejriwal’s game plan.

However, Kejriwal will not find his upcoming journey from Delhi to New Delhi a walk on the clouds. He will find his path strewn with more thorns rather than rose petals. Here are four reasons for this argument.

His megalomaniac ways and a Superman act: Kejriwal has been taking on everyone, sparing none. If politics is a war, which in many ways it is, then he is a bad general. You don’t open all the fronts and expect to win the war. He has taken on the Congress, the BJP in general and Narendra Modi in particular, the power distribution companies (or “discoms” as they are called in Delhi), the corporate world led by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, and virtually the entire political leadership of the country by releasing a list of 53 national-level “corrupt” politicians, which includes Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

His image: He is increasingly being seen as an anarchist and a disruptive force. He starts off with an agitation at the drop of a hat and did so even as Delhi chief minister. A compelling question, which of late has been gathering momentum nationwide, is: What if he sits on a “dharna” even after he becomes the prime minister?

His incapacity or unwillingness to see the other point of view: Kejriwal has shown an uncanny rigidity in pummeling his way through. When the rest of India was horrified over the conduct of his loud-mouthed lawless Law Minister Somnath Bharti over the alleged drugs-and-sex racket involving Ugandan and Nigerian nationals living in Delhi, he blindly supported him and sat on a protest on Jan. 21-22 and even threatened to disrupt India’s Republic Day.

His authoritarian ways: Kejriwal has been running his political party with a small bunch of his handpicked loyalists, much like the CEO of a company. AAP legislator Vinod Kumar Binny exposed Kejriwal’s soft underbelly when he turned hostile. The question is when he could not manage the small group of 28 legislators at the state level how can he be expected to keep the flock together at the national level?

Kejriwal is essentially a Trojan horse kind of a politician whose most lethal weapon is his capability of springing a surprise to anyone, any time, and any number of times. His approach is “my way or the highway” or “either you are with us or against us.”

This is a dangerous approach. Kejriwal needs to make friends also, not just more and more enemies.

- The writer is a New Delhi-based political commentator who tweets @Kishkindha.