Arvind Kejriwal did not resign from the Delhi Chief Minister’s post to uphold principles; those who suffer from messianic zeal have no principles to uphold — their only principle is self-interest
There’s little about Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party that either amuses or amazes any more. Every utterance, every action, every theatrical show of outrage has become predictable. The script has been used once too often. Yet, there’s something dazzlingly amazing about the man who clearly suffers from a rare syndrome called ‘messianic zeal’ — his ability to brazenly lie, on camera, in front of his ‘volunteers’, wherever and whenever there is an opportunity to peddle untruth packaged as his, and hence incontestable, version of the truth. The monopoly over all that is virtuous and good vests with the self-righteous and sanctimonious Arvind Kejriwal. It is not surprising that Ford Foundation should have showered its bounty on him.
let it be said, and said upfront, that Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to resign from the post of Chief Minister of Delhi has nothing to do with highfalutin principles of morality and ethics. Indeed, his resignation on Friday is as much anchored in principled politics as his decision to form a Government with the support of the Congress. No Mr Kejriwal, contrary to your claim that the Congress forced its support on you, as you told the crowd at the AAP headquarters on Friday evening, the fact is that it was a deal which was struck by you with an industrialist playing broker. Within hours of your having lunch with the industrialist at a Delhi hotel whose gym is the favourite haunt of the Congress first family’s son-in-law, my friends in the Congress called to give me the information. Factional politics has its benefits.
For the Congress, AAP was (and remains) a useful means of trying to halt Narendra Modi’s march to Delhi. For Arvind Kejriwal, the idea of forming a Government with the Congress’s support was not without merit. It would afford him the chance to hand out freebies, consolidate the AAP’s vote and, at an opportune moment make a grand show of resigning from office on an emotive issue. That was the script and he has followed it without any diversions. Tax-funded hand-outs by way of cheaper water and power (though the price reduction is illusionary), writing off 50 per cent of the electricity bills of those who joined his ‘Bijli Andolan’, late night vigilantism to pander to khaapis in our midst. These are essentially the ‘achievements’ of the 49 days he and AAP were in power. In between he sat on a dharna that he called off after the Congress bailed him out.
Arvind Kejriwal now says that the BJP and the Congress connived against him because he ordered the filing of an FIR against Mukesh Ambani, Veerappa Moily and others for unduly raising the price of gas. We will never know the fate of that FIR or his true intent. What we know for a fact is that his last deed before exiting office was to gift `372 crore to Anil Ambani’s power distribution companies. But then facts have never stood in the way of Arvind Kejriwal who has cynically manipulated them, subverted them and reinvented them to suit his goal of capturing power. Never mind his proclaimed disdain for office, and the loaves and fishes that come with office.
It is frightfully absurd to suggest that the BJP and the Congress joined hands to bring down his Government over the Jan lokpal Bill. Whatever may have been the compulsions of the Congress to stall the introduction of the Bill, the BJP’s reasons were stated unambiguously by Harsh Vardhan, and reiterated subsequently: The party would vote for the Bill provided AAP followed the constitutional route of getting it approved by the Union Government as is stipulated by law.
But the law, like the truth, is of little relevance to Arvind Kejriwal. So he would not acknowledge the validity of Section 22 (3) of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Act. Nor could he bother about Article 239 AA of the Constitution of India. So he thumped a copy of the Constitution and pompously declared: “Nowhere does the Constitution say I have to get the Union Government’s approval. So how can my bringing the Bill directly to the Assembly be unconstitutionalIJ” Nowhere does the Constitution mention the word ‘murder’. By Arvind Kejriwal’s twisted logic, the crime of murder cannot be held to be unconstitutional. If such be his ignorance or, as many would suggest, contempt for subsidiary law drawing from the Constitution, it would be worth revisiting the files he cleared as an Income Tax Assistant Commissioner — that is, provided he cleared any files at all.
This is not to suggest that the law preventing the Government of Delhi from tabling money Bills directly is justified or correct. But if the law so offended Arvind Kejriwal, he could have contested it in court and got it struck down. That would have been the right thing to do. He chose to avoid that route as it would have robbed him of the opportunity of grandstanding and resigning; it would have meant digressing from the script.
There are many promises made by AAP and Arvind Kejriwal that could have been taken up while sorting out the messy arrangement on law-making in a quasi-State like Delhi. Arvind Kejriwal could have worked on providing relief to the thousands of contract workers whom he had promised full time jobs. He could have worked on night shelters for the homeless. Instead, after posing for photographs, his Ministers abandoned Delhi’s poor to die in this year’s bitter winter. He could have focussed on hospitals but all that he did was to let loose his vigilantes to run riot in Delhi’s under-staffed, over-stretched health facilities. He could have begun work in earnest to build more and better schools.
All this and more could have been done. But they would have required something which is called ‘governance’, a word that does not exist in AAP’s lexicon and is anathema to Arvind Kejriwal. So he decided to spit and scoot, something which he and his boorish colleagues excel at — hurl allegations, make startling charges, claim the world is conspiring against god’s army, label everybody who disagrees with their anarchic methods of political aggrandisement as ‘corrupt’, and move on to the next round of slander and abuse.
In the coming weeks we will see the second phase of AAP-Congress collaborative politics of limitless cynicism take shape. The bothersome task of governing Delhi was a big drain on Arvind Kejriwal’s fanciful ambition of taking over the country. Having got rid of the distraction called Delhi, he can now aim for India. In that task he will be amply helped by the Congress which, having lost India, is loath to see Narendra Modi win India to lead this nation back to economic recovery and success. It’s not for nothing that Ford Foundation chose Arvind Kejriwal — he is the perfect anarchist to throw a spanner in the works for India’s return to the trajectory of stability, growth and prosperity. And it’s not for nothing that the Congress has chosen to collaborate with him — and vice versa.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)