The Shamelessness of Arvind Kejriwal
Arvind Kejriwal is fast turning into an embarrassment of sorts,
even for the supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
“Politics is about drama,” revealed a spokesman of the AAP on a TV
channel. The director of the AAP Natak Company is the actor par excellence, Arvind Kejriwal. Ever since he burst on the Indian political scene as a messiah
against corruption and cronyism, Kejriwal has railed against everyone who did
not agree with him. He has called people names, accused rivals of corruption
without presenting an iota of evidence. And where he had evidence, he did
nothing; recall his dithering in the CWG-Sheila Dixit case where he asked the
BJP to furnish evidence even after he flashed 370 pages of evidence against the
Congress government in Delhi at numerous rallies.
In Varanasi, he lied that he did not have more than Rs500 in his
pocket and that he does not believe in helicopter campaigning like Narendra
Modi and Rahul Gandhi. This is the same person who took a flight back to Delhi
after the campaign ended. And this is the same fraud who pays a monthly rent of
Rs90,000 for his residence (Delhi CM bungalow which he retained after quitting).
Yesterday, he refused to furnish a personal bond of Rs10,000 for
bail in the Nitin Gadkari defamation case. He asked the judge to treat him
differently. The bemused and unmoved judge sent him to Tihar Jail.
AAP activists descended on the Tihar Jail in hordes to protest
against the arrest of their leader; why should they protest against lawful
detention? Their leader was arrested in accordance with the law and given a
chance to seek bail, which he refused.
It is nobody’s guess that AK and his party are doing this to
regain lost ground in Delhi, with an eye on the assembly elections. A little
chastened after receiving a massive drubbing in the recently-held Lok Sabha
elections, AK expressed remorse to the people of Delhi for having quit the
government in haste.
Why did it take him so long to admit to such blunder of a decision?
Soon after he quit as Delhi CM, critics and supporters alike asked him the same
question: why did he quit, especially after holding a referendum in Delhi to
seek public opinion on forming a government with the support of the Indian
National Congress? Did he hold a referendum (to seek public approval) to resign
from the Chief Minister’s post?
In response to these pertinent questions, AK said that he quit the
CM’s post because he is a man of principles. So, now that he has said sorry for
having quit abruptly, where are those principles? For Arvind Kejriwal, principles
are matters of convenience; they always have been.
Like in all aspects of life, change is constant in politics. The
truth is that Arvind Kejriwal has morphed from a messiah into a power-hungry
politician, the same kind that he claims to despise and oppose. The sad part is
in this short political journey he has crushed the hopes of millions who believed
in his false messianic zeal to clean the rotten political system.
I am glad that Arvind Kejriwal is being seen today for what he truly
is – a political fraud who is both power-hungry and megalomaniac.
