DR. S. AUSAF SAIED VASFI comments on the change in the political discourse of the nation with AAP chief taking oath as Chief Minister of Delhi.
The founder and chief of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has taken oath of office as 7th Chief Minister of Delhi at the Ramlila Grounds. By all accounts the occasion was free from razzamatazz or razzle-dazzle.
Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, a dynamo on two legs, the sprit behind the show, is an ordinary person born in extraordinary circumstances. He is just 45. He is an IIT graduate from Kharagpur and above all, he is a Magsaysay Award winner. He has been Income Tax Commissioner also. There are 28 MLAs with him.
But the most significant point is he has changed the political discourse of the nation. The basis of this national discourse is honesty, probity, accountability, and politics free from sleaze.
His cabinet is perhaps the youngest in plural Bharat. His colleague, Rakhi Birla, is just 26.
‘WHO KEJRIWAL?’
How to turn a crisis into an opportunity? Learn this art from the AAP supremo, who refuses to be provoked by his arch rivals or motivated denigrators. “Who Kejriwal?” asked the outgoing Delhi chief minister the other day angrily. On the day the results of the Assembly elections were announced, Ms. Shiela Dixit, we guess, memorised his entire bio-data, also because she had been defeated by him by a whooping margin of 25,000.
The AAP manifesto promises to the minorities they will be protected and “fake encounters and false cases against Muslim youth shall end”.
As he has struck a sympathetic chord, the Muslim leadership of Delhi expects him to open the Batla House encounter case, in which two innocent Muslim youth were allegedly murdered by the police. Several were held and unnecessarily arrested. The process has been stopped simply because it would have caused a slur on the fair face of the Delhi police.
With regard to corruption that has, in fact, thrown up Mr. Kejriwal on the national scene (repeat national scene), the AAP leader is a hard nut to crack. The Frankenstein happens to have the Himalayan height. We wish more strength to Mr. Kejriwal’s elbows. His public commitment that “any official found guilty of corruption shall be sacked, jailed and his or her property confiscated”, pleases one and all.
PROBITY ENCOURAGED
Not only that: honest officials like Ashok Khanke and Durga Shakti Nagpal would be encouraged and protected. Has any other party manifesto these and similar points of public commitments?
Sustained efforts at demoralising Mr. Kejriwal have failed to break his morale. Amidst essays in hitting below the belt, he announced: within 24 hours of taking over, the AAP would begin supply of 700 litres of water free every day to every household.
His remarkable innovation was issuance of 70 constituency-wise manifestos to facilitate remedial measures.
IMAGINATION
Imagination is very much evidence in Mr. Kejriwal’s manifesto which has been described as populist by some critics. Only time will prove the truth. But the team of dedicated men and women who are with him creates hope for the future.
What remains un-said is both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are rivals of AAP. The Congress is mortally afraid of AAP especially because the AAP chief has made it clear that he would look into the 15-year long Congress rule in the country. Hence the difference of opinion among the Congressmen. The fear behind their apprehension is that a majority of them are in their birthday suits in the muddy pond. Both the parties also know that their obduracy is bound to boomerang and Mr. Kejriwal will come to power with double digit in case a re-election is inflicted on the national capital. It means that effort to derail AAP would be advantageous neither for the BJP nor for the Congress.
As it was a state assembly election, only local or civic issues were taken up by Mr. Kejriwal. Some of them are: supply of electricity at half of the current rates, health care at a lower price and subsidies on solar power production and setting up mohalla sabhas for the solution of the neighbourhood problems. The party has admirably promised to conduct regular audits of the accounts and rectify the inflated bills. The power corporations may also come under RTI. Electricity producers may be picked up on the basis of efficiency. To be noted is the fact that presently the AAP chief has not touched any international issue.
Irrespective of slums or unrecognised colonies, revival of Delhi water bodies as well as harvesting of city rain water is also on the agenda of the AAP.
Quite significantly, the party has also promised to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill within two weeks of assuming power. The MCD, DDA and police are likely to come under the State Government. But the Union Home Ministry is likely to oppose the demand.
ENEMY’S ENEMY
A section of the Congress believes that the AAP is “enemy’s enemy”. It may be a good cliché or a telling headline. But it does not take the Congress anywhere. Once the Congress supports the AAP, it will be next to impossible to pull the rug under the feet of Mr. Kejriwal. The party happens to be in a Cath-22 position.
As far as BJP is concerned, the party would see to it that an opportune moment arrives when it would comfortably rescue the Congress. It is a dream rather a day dream. In history the Saffron has never rescued the Congress. They are diagonally opposed to each other. And there is little common between them. The late Mr. M.S. Golwalkar had, of course, once asked the RSS cadre to vote for the “nationalist forces”. But today all the nationalist forces have been gobbled up by corruption. There is evidence that suggests that extremists from across the border have purchased some of our Hindu brethren and did which is prohibited in each and every holy scripture. The point to be stressed here is that now the ultranationalists too have a price.
Now regional parties are expressing apprehension against the emergence of AAP. One of his latest critics is Mr. Sharad Pawar. Before proceeding further, what has to be noted is the deep fear of exposure before public. The corrupts, the thugs, the swindlers and the cheats robbing the garb of gentlemen fear that the AAP would, sooner or later, disrobe them. The real villain of peace is the wealth earned through questionable means. The real enemy is not AAP; the real foe is the unaccounted money.
What particularly endears Mr. Kejriwal to the man-on-the-street is his pure simplicity, utter straightforwardness coupled with his boyish smile. He touched the hearts of the proverbial daridranarayan when he refused to shift in the CM’s bungalow, when he refused security, when he refused extraordinary gestures of respect by his followers. The other day Mr. Sharad Pawar, in his utter muddle-headedness threw a shaft on Mr. Kejriwal, saying the latter’s claim is “hilarious” that he would bring down the price of onion the day he comes to power.
Would the Minister of Agriculture mind being told that when it became clear that the Congress has been booted out in Delhi – much before Mr. Kejriwal’s taking of oath – the prices of onion came down from Rs. 100-Rs. 80 to Rs. 20 and Rs. 15 a kg.