Kejriwal vs Kejriwal

In Bollywood language, Kejriwal had delivered three movies last week.  The Robert Vadra movie was an all time block buster, the Salman Khurshid movie was a super hit and the Nitin Gadkari movie was flop. Why did Kejriwal release Nitin Gadkari movie when he had the material for another potential hit movie, that of Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule? Was there any benefit of releasing a flop movie? Let us analyze the strange case of Kejriwal vs Kejriwal…!

Kejriwal – The trusted aid of Anna Hazare

Arvind Kejriwal had been one of the focal points of Anna Hazare movement ever since it came to limelight in 2010 - 2011. In every meeting of civil society, he occupied chair next to Anna Hazare. His media briefings were quite impressive, simple and clear to understand by a common man. He was considered as the strategy arm of Anna Hazare movement. Every decision taken by Anna Hazare was whetted by Kejriwal before any announcement was made.

The conflict with Anna Hazare

The movement took an unexpected turn when Kejriwal and his two associates had to break the fast after 10 days without apparent success. Even though Anna Hazare joined them later and fasted, the spotlight always remained on Kejriwal during those ten days. The movement ended with announcement of a political outfit to counter the callous and arrogant UPA government. It still remains a mystery whether or not Anna Hazare gave consent to that idea then. Publicly that was the start point for Anna Hazare and Kejriwal to part ways. Though Anna Hazare was a bit curt to Kejriwal in the initial few days after their separation, apparently he has now softened his stand.

Kejriwal – The politician

But this has taken Kejriwal on an uncharted territory. He had announced his decision to go ahead with a political party without adequate logistics or enough resources. There was no name for the party, not its ideology is published till date. It is not clear whether they would join with other parties if they don’t have the numbers to form a government on their own. If, yes, what would happen to the agenda of corruption? One thing is clear that they have great potential to cause damage to other parties even by sitting in opposition. The UPA can no longer challenge them on grounds of constitutional procedures and accuse them of showing disrespect to the established systems of governance in a democracy. He has to now continue marching on that route to maintain his authenticity in public domain. And his inexperience as a politician will start appearing soon.

Kejriwal vs Kejriwal

We are all aware of the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Similarly, the real fight happening today is between the Activist Kejriwal and the Politician Kejriwal. Their objectives are different, their modus operandi to achieve respective objectives is different and their constraints are different. Unfortunately, they clash with each other very often. And Kejriwal-the-person may not be able to cope with this dual entity for long. He needs to choose one way, as it is practically impossible to ride both horses at same time like ‘son of sardar’.

Robert Vadra expose

Activist Kejriwal earned accolades for his exemplary courage and accurate homework to take on the Gandhi family with explicit proof. It put the UPA in a tight spot to the extent that Robert Vadra started appearing like ‘national embarrassment’. The case is still alive and is being doused with more fuel by the Ashok Khemka episode and the denial of Corporation bank to have provided any overdraft as mentioned in audited reports of Robert’s company. The case is so weak for the Gandhi family that it looks extremely difficult for them to come out clean in this case. He has scored full marks for this expose.

Salman Khurshid expose

Then came the Salman Khurshid case. This was in collaboration with Aaj Tak channel. They did most of the spade work while he only verified those facts with help of RTI and jumped into the game. Salman Khurshid has lost much of his aura and sheen after his undiplomatic outbursts during the press conference, openly threatening Kejriwal and hurriedly distributing some equipment among the handicapped people to make for the shortfall of last three years and create new evidence in his favor. If Salman Khurshid’s image and popularity has taken a beating after this expose, he himself is more responsible for that than Kejriwal.  Kejriwal again came out successful from this expose.

Nitin Gadkari expose

Here started Kejriwal’s problems. His next expose was going to be Nitin Gadkari. He created much hype about this expose through his associate Anjali Damania, unlike first two cases.  Unfortunately, many times in life, too much of hype about anything creates a sense of disappointment later, as whatever comes out after the real event seems to be below the imaginary expectations. This was prominently noted in recent past for the much hyped events like Ra One release, Rahul Gandhi’s UP campaign, Obama’s performance as President, Anna Hazare’s subsequent fasts after the famous August 2011 fast etc.

The much hyped expose by Arvind Kejriwal on Nitin Gadkari also falls under the same category. Unfortunately, this case was much weaker in substance than the earlier two cases. The case was further weakened immediately, due to a surprisingly proactive approach by the BJP top brass, who were ready to face any eventuality. While Robert Vadra never appeared before the camera even once to clarify his position and Salman Khurshid is becoming increasingly aggressive and cheap, the BJP has explained its position point by point on the expose with much dignity and humility.

Political compulsions of Kejriwal

Why did Kejriwal choose to expose Nitin Gadkari, when he had more solid material against Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule? The reason is that the politician Kejriwal had an urgency to prove to the country that he is against Corruption and not against Congress. And to prove that point, he needed to cast some aspersions against BJP as well. Moreover, there was a growing perception in political class in recent months that BJP’s infighting has taken a toll in its position as a strong opposition. He needed to capitalize on that vacuum created by ineffective BJP. But unfortunately it boomeranged very badly on him, because in the process of proving BJP a corrupt party, he eroded his credentials as an activist who comes out with concrete evidence in every case. There are various unfounded theories doing rounds on Kejriwal’s expose of Nitin Gadkari. The prominent among them is that a section of BJP has used Kejriwal against growing stature of Gadkari within BJP.

The constraint of politician Kejriwal is that he cannot antagonize any political party beyond certain extent, since he does not know when he would require their help and in what context. Perhaps that was the reason why he chose to either hide or delay the Sharad Pawar expose. Or in a wild possibility again, Sharad Pawar has already ‘immunized’ himself from the activist Kejriwal by purchasing the politician Kejriwal. Sharad Pawar has demonstrated his expertise in such acts over last four decades.

The coming days are going to be difficult for Kejriwal-the-person when he would be required to reclaim his credibility. Now he faces competition from other activists like YP Singh, who are alleging him to be making selective exposes. He also called him a Hitler. Kejriwal needs to disprove this allegation on an urgent basis to win over the people’s faith in him.

He is now treading on a dangerous path and would pay heavy price for even silly mistakes. He is taking on the established politicians on their turf. His mass support is not yet proven in electoral success. We wish Kejriwal-the-person all the very best and hope that wisdom prevails on him in taking every single step.

With all his flaws, he is still the only person who has the desire and capability to bring a smile on the face of common man in India by fighting against corruption.