KEJRIWAL — The Villain of an Electoral Tragedy

  

KEJRIWAL — The Villain of an Electoral Tragedy

If politics is the art of sowing the seeds of false promises —  promises beyond fulfillment  in the world of reality — to reap a harvest of political and electoral dividends, there can be no match to the expertise of the AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal who resigned as Delhi chief minister on February 14. He was acting word by word, step by step as per a well-written script with a pre-determined finale. Since taking over he was feeling uneasy in  fulfilling the promises made to the people at the time of elections. Since AAP itself did not hope to get a majority, Kejriwal promised the moon and the stars to the people.  People were taken in by his glibe talk. He had even promised a separate manifesto for each assembly constituency — a promise that remained a prisoner of his words and never appeared on paper even. He seemed sure that Party will not get a majority and, therefore, it will provide him a chance to make people realise their mistake by telling that had they voted for AAP he would have fetched heaven right at their doors in Delhi.

A vagabond of street agitations and 'hero' of Jantar Mantar, Kejriwal fell victim to his own inflated ego and untamed tongue. He  was each day feeling uncomfortable in the CM's chair. Being high on rehetorics and low on performance people were getting impatient with Kejriwal. He now came to realise that his world of promises was turning into a hell of reality for him.

Kejriwal once claimed that he had done so much in so short a time that no government in the past had been able to accomplish even in a decade. But the words of his language  are not a reality on the ground. He did announce a 50 percent reduction in power tarriff but had yet to be reflected in the bills the consumers received. The same is true about free 700 litres of water per day.  On the contrary, complaints of people about erratic water and power supply increased with the dawn of AAP government. Further, the day he quit office, he got a ` 372 crore subsidty approved from the Vidhan Sabha to benefit not the consumer but the power supply company he condemned.

Kejriwal had, surprisingly, been speaking ill of the Ambani owned power company and praising the one owned by TATA. The TATA company on January 29 wrote to the Government that should there be increase in the prices of gas in March (which Oil Minister Veerappa Moily was sure it will happen) the power supply rates be increased by 28 paisa per unit from April. Kejriwal withheld this vital information deliberately from the people.

He had won the election on the plank of eradicating corruption. All that he achieved in his 49 day rule was catching hold of 3 police constables for graft. It speaks volumes for his war against this malady.  

That the highly moralist AAP does not mind making utterly false claims became apparent when addressing a CII conference Kajriwal himself claimed — and his crony Ms Sazia Ilmi repeated —that a survey conducted by the Transparency International India (TII) had revealed that after Kejriwal government took over the extent of corruption in Delhi had come down. But AAP had to lick the bitter taste the truth of its own falsehood when TII nailed the lie by calling it "factually incorrect"  and that they had "not undertaken any study on corruption in Delhi" adding that "there is no question of any such published or unpublished report". Veteran journalist Kanchan Gupta has described it as a "moral corruption". Ultimately, AAP had to apologise to TII.

On the eve of Kejriwal government taking over, the Union Government had increased the rates of CNG and LPG.  Kejriwal had declared that he would give relief both to the housewives and the auto-rickshaws who had both been AAP's staunch supporters.

After the Rail Bhawan dharna natak fiasco, Kejriwal saw the writing on the wall. He felt convinced that he would no longer be able to take the people for a ride and indefinitely blackmail the helplessness of Congress to support him to keep the BJP out of power at every cost. Since then he was on the look out for a safe passage to come out as a martyr to the cause for which he had made no sacrifice.

As a CM Kejriwal is expected to be fully conversant with the Constitution and laws of the land.   Instead he tried to turn it a virtue of his.  Replying to a debate in the Delhi assembly he valiantly declared that to honour and protect the Constitution he was ready to make any sacrifice, his life even.  He flaunted a copy of the Constitution to claim that nowhere did it provide that the consent of the Lt. Governor/Union Government was necessary before placing a bill like the Delhi Lokpal for consideration of the Vidhan Sabha. This he said after on the insistence of the Opposition the Speaker had read out Lt. Governor's message to him saying that as "the Janlokpal Bill is being introduced in the Legislative Assembly without following the procedure ……, I hereby send the "message" under section 9(2) of the Government of NCT Delhi Act, 1991 to the Legislative Assembly not to consider the Bill unless it is introduced with the recommendations of the Lt. Governor".

As per section 22(3) of the Government of NCT of Delhi Act, 1991, the LG said, it being a "Financial Bill" is to be sent to the Lt. Governor for recommendations and as per rule 55(1) of Transaction of Business of Government of National Capital Territory Rules, 1993, the Lt. Governor is required to make a prior reference to the Central government before being introduced in Legislative Assembly. The said Bill has yet not been duly placed before me by the Government of NCT of Delhi", the LG added.

Thus both Kejriwal and the Speaker violated the law and the Lt. Governor's "message" by introducing the Bill. He duped the people by falsely telling that both BJP and Congress opposed the Janlokpal Bill. What the opposition did was to frustrate the attempt of Kejriwal government to defy law. The opposition could not be privy to the "anarchist" Kejriwal bypassing the law and the Constitution.

Kejriwal had another reason too. He wanted to free himself from the chains of running a government during the run-up to Parliament elections. In one breath he says he will fight Lok Sabha pitted against BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narinder Modi from wherever he contests to Parliament except from Gujarat. In another breath, he says he will not contest Parliament election.

It is interesting to recall that when Kejriwal formed his party, he had declared that there will be no high command in his party. It is the people who will decide the candidates and its policies. But it is not so now. The party has already announced 20 candidates for Parliament election without consulting even the party workers, not to speak of the aam aadmi.

A party which failed to deliver goods, come up to the expectations of the people and failed to live up to the promises, is seeking a mandate to run the country. A person who could not run a small union territory government of Delhi having just 7 MPs for 50 days is hoping that the people will not go by his performance but by tall promises and claims to give a strong and stable government at the Centre.

BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, on the other hand, is seeking people's mandate on the strength of 14 years of giving a clean and efficient government which set new norms of good governance and set model of development.  He has a vision and determination to do what he says and say what he does.                                                                                    ***