Beneath Kejriwal's impassioned speech lay contradictions, omissions, and questionable parallels aimed at swaying the electorate

Kejriwal’s expertise in political charade was on show when he spoke to his party members on 15th September, two days after being released from Tihar jail on interim bail granted by the Supreme Court subject to stringent, limiting conditions. He made this out to be an acquittal when it was only a reprieve and an initial indictment.He started with Vande Mataram, Bharat Mata ki Jai, and Inqalab Zindabad, invoking Hindutva, patriotism, and the anti-government revolutionary sentiment of our freedom struggle.

He likened himself to Bhagat Singh by quoting from his diary and drawing parallels with the legendary freedom fighter. He sought the sympathy of the electorate by making out the Central Government to be more cruel than the British rulers and to be wanting to destroy him and AAP. He made himself out to be the Messiah of Democracy trying to save the Constitution, which is why, he claimed, he had not resigned earlier.

The coup de grace was his announcement that over the next two days, he would quit as Delhi’s CM and not sit on the CM’s chair until and unless the public judges him to be honest. He reminded his audience of the Agnipareekshathat Sita had to undergo, after Lord Rama’s 14 years-long exile, to prove her innocence. He was, he said, willing to undergo a similar trial-by-fire to prove his innocence by seeking the public’s mandate. Not even once, did he name the BJP or Modi; both were subsumed in the innocuous pronoun “they”.It was a masterly performance of demagoguery. In the hoodwinking of the Indian masses, Kejriwal is miles ahead of other politicians.

He evokes emotions and obscures facts, sometimes even twisting them. Consider these omissions and contradictions.If Kejriwal wanted the people’s verdict, to assuage his “conscience”, he should have resigned much earlier, when he was sent to Tihar. Why do it after the SC has severely limited your powers as CM? Bhagat Singh was fighting for the country’s independence and was accused of sedition, Kejriwal for his political survival after being found prima facie guilty of corruption by court.

Bhagat Singh was hanged by the British rulers. GoI is unlikely to do that with Kejriwal. The parallel drawn was specious, the basis given — of the undelivered letter to LG — crafty. He boasted of the freebies he has been able to give because of his uncorrupted government — free electricity and free bus travel for women — unmindful of the burden that the honest taxpayer has to bear to fund his vote-buying spree and the damage it does to the national capital’s exchequer.

His claim of improved medical care and better government school education would be contested by many Delhi-ites. His mohallaclinics are ministered to by unqualified doctors who visit on an ad hoc basis. Many government schools are short of teachers and have poor infrastructure.As always, he appealed to the emotions of the gullible electorate of the slums, announcing that he would not sit on the CM’s chair unless and until the public judges him to be honest by voting him into power in the next assembly elections.

Surely, he would have known that, given the serious corruption charges against him, his honesty would be judged not by the common man on sentiment but by erudite judges, well-versed in law, based on concrete evidence admissible in law.

(The writer, a former banker, has turned in his mellow years to column-writing out of his love for nonviolence, social harmony and universal brotherhood; views are personal)