Is Arvind Kejriwal’s magic fading away?

Arvind Kejriwal is on an indefinite fast in Delhi since last 7 days to protest against the water and electricity charges. Sadly, the media coverage has been very low this time. Even the people are not flocking around him in large numbers, as they did on earlier occasions. Is the Kejriwal magic fading away? At one time before Modi’s arrival on national scene, people drew comparison between Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi, over the suitability for the next prime minister ship. So what has gone wrong in the last few months? We analyze the 5 main reasons why Kejriwal is losing his sheen…!

Break away from Anna Hazare

Even though Arvind Kejriwal devoted himself to social causes by giving up his job much before, he was shot into limelight only during his association with Anna Hazare while negotiating with government on the Lokpal issue. People considered him to be the main strategist behind Anna’s every move. His calm media briefings, good vocabulary and intelligent remarks brought him closer to hearts of masses. They started seeing in him the future leader of India, who was ready to fight for their cause till the end.

But things turned ugly, when the discord between Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal started appearing in the media. They both went through rounds of denial and refusal on all such matters for some time, but could not sustain for long. The important point on this journey of break-up was when it was alleged that Kejriwal had visited Anna in his village to ‘return’ an amount of Rs. 2 Crores, which was apparently with him, received as donations for the movement. Unfortunately, whenever matter of such large amount of money comes into discussion, people’s mind gets polluted with various wild possibilities and the sanctity of the subject gets lost. Subsequently, they put up a brave face and fasted jointly in Delhi, but it ended up without any result and with a highly unexpected declaration of a political outfit for the movement. Thereafter, within few days, they both declared parting of their ways on ideological issues, while respecting each other.

So, it raises questions – was the aura created around Kejriwal was because of his association with a clean character like Anna Hazare? Kejriwal has no substance in himself to be a leader of masses? These questions can only be answered in coming few months.

Too many expose in short time  

In October 2012 Kejriwal was the hero of media. He nonchalantly exposed scam after scam on a weekly basis. His opponents got very nervous and compared his exposes with a weekly vegetable market, out of despair. During those days, he was able to sufficiently build up suspense over his next target. He took on the mighty and powerful people like Salman Khurshid, Robert Vadra, Nitin Gadkari and many industrialists in quick succession.

However, all that hype fizzled out slowly, as very few of these allegations had sustaining power in the court of law.  People were disillusioned about the authenticity of the claims made by Kejriwal and company. It lost its seriousness and became more of an entertainment exercise for the media and people. Seeing the situation, the politicians also gradually became less wary of Kejriwal’s expose. In this context, Beni Prasad Verma came out with a stunningly wise comment on Kejriwal. He said, ‘One must not bark every day… instead one should roar once in a while.’ How true…!

Political Ambitions

Unfortunately, in India, people have developed an aversion to politicians. It is because, today we find very few politicians who are morally and ethically correct in their behavior and dealings. Most of the politicians are embroiled in some controversy or other. In this backlight, when Kejriwal announced his political ambitions, it came as a blow to his supporters. Some of them immediately started visualizing him as a power hungry, corrupt politician.

People raised genuine questions about the source of funding of his party, how he was going to get clean candidates, can he win elections without money and muscle power etc. So, the image carefully built up as an apolitical social outfit took a serious beating. Some people also questioned his views and ideas on crucial policy matters of national interest, which are not revealed explicitly till now.

Focus on anti-establishment

If we really look at Arvind Kejriwal and his contribution all these days, his name is synonymous with expose. That is why, Digvijay Singh once twitted that both Arvind Kejriwal and Rakhi Sawant were similar in the sense - both wanted to expose but without any substance. His work is focused only on revealing the wrong doings of people in power. He has undoubtedly brought in glaring public domain many issues which otherwise would have been dormant.

But, beyond a certain point, people question your credentials. When a person plays with fire he risks getting his hands burnt. So also, the entire government machinery worked overtime to look for any lapses on part of Kejriwal in fulfilling his obligations as an upright citizen of this country. And they found out about his pending loan repayment to the government, while he was in service. However hard he tried to justify his actions, a seed of doubt was sown in the minds of people. And with that, the halo around his image was cracked. People started looking at him like an ordinary man.

Moreover, he focused so much on the anti-establishment that he did not give prominence on his vision for the country, his policies to make thing better, his ideology on various national issues etc. It was more like a communist phenomenon, where you oppose everything existing without naming how you are going to correct it.

Insensitivity of Public

The people of this country have becomes slightly insensitive in the last few months. Whether it is because of daily incidences of rape cases being debated on national media, or huge amount of corruption cases happening around in every possible area, or an utter helpless situation where the people are fed up with misrule of government and the opposition not being ready to provide an alternative…the fact is that people have become highly insensitive and learnt to be more tolerant. Today, very few eyebrows raise if a new case of gang rape is mentioned, or another case of multi Crores corruption is discovered.

The immunity of people has risen so high that they have actually started enjoying these news items out of their frustration. The media is making the hay while sun shines and pushing all bad news day after day on prime time. The government is cashing in on the apathy of people and brazenly carrying on with their dubious tasks unmindful of public reaction.

In such a scenario, therefore, it was but natural that people show very less interest in Kejriwal’s hunger strike as well. His current fast has almost become like only a family affair, with some AAP leaders sitting around him and posing for the camera. The media is conspicuous by its absence or poor coverage. It took the government 13 days to break the fast of Anna Hazare in August 2011. God knows how many days it will take for the government this time. Whether they will make any attempt to break his fast at all, is also doubtful.

One thing is sure… the nation is losing one intelligent strategist… who is fading into oblivion because of some wrong steps taken by him…!  

5 Mistakes of Congress…!

Congress is on the verge of completing its second consecutive term in office but its ride all along had been very bumpy and difficult. While there were some external factors like global recession responsible for this, there were too many internal reasons as well. The government could have confidently marched towards the poll for a third time victory, had it put its own house in order on some simple yet important issues.

We look at 5 most important reasons, which have led the government to this situation, where it is being regularly deserted by its allies for past few months, very few parties are willing to go with it for polls and the survival of government itself is in doubt till the polls in May 2014.

Arrogance

A party is always known by its leaders. Unfortunately, today the senior leaders in Congress have developed a sort of arrogance, which was never seen in Congress before. The casual way, in which Chidambaram and Sibbal handled Anna Hazare case, the insensitive way in which Chidambaram handled Baba Ramdev case, the brazen manner in which Manish Tiwari commented on Anna Hazare etc all speak about arrogance in minds. Salman Khurshid was much arrogant in calling Arvind Kejriwal a ‘गन्दी नाली का कीड़ा’...!

The arrogance in dealing takes a dangerous turn when the same behavior is extended to the allies, on whose support the government survives. Mamata was looking for a safe exit after she was insulted repeatedly by the Congress. She chose to use the FDI pretext to part ways. DMK was terribly upset over the way congress shielded its own leaders in 2G scam, but jailed the DMK ministers. So, the DMK chose Sri Lanka issue to exit from the long standing alliance.

There is a difference between ‘being brave’ and ‘being arrogant’. Unfortunately, for the Congress, being brave is equivalent to being arrogant. Luck has been on their side all these years, but it cannot be ever taken for granted.

Disconnect with Voters

The last two years of UPA II rule are characterized by inflation. The government appears to have almost stopped thinking about the voters. The prices of Petrol and Diesel have risen to astronomical levels. Limiting the number of Gas cylinders in a year was something very new to the Indians. The vegetable prices are soaring high. But the government is not at all bothering to check the prices. It is as though, it is none of their concern. How can they forget that these are the same people, to whom they have to go in 2014 for votes? It is stupidity on part of Congress to assume, that people will think, that the government is trying its best to control prices and these things are beyond government’s control. How will the people forgive a government which has been insensitive to their basis needs of governance?

The think tank of Congress collectively felt that under the names of ‘economic reforms’ they can push hard decisions on the people, which are actually caused due to their misappropriations, wrong actions and wrong doings…!   

No check on corrupt leaders

One thing which characterized the last three years of UPA II was the regular expose of some scam or other. There have been corruption cases in almost every conceivable area of activity. It started with the Common wealth games, followed by 2G scam. The coal scam was the biggest of all, pegged at Rs. 1.86 Lakhs Crores. The latest scam to hit the government was the chopper deal with Italy. The most high profile one was that of land deals between Haryana Government, DLF and Robert Vadra.

However, what was more surprising was that literally there was no any action initiated against any Congress leader for any corruption charge against him. The congress leadership turned a blind eye in all cases and their spokesperson vehemently denied all charges on various TV channels. In some cases, like Salman Khurshid, he was elevated in rank after the charges were proved against him. This showed a kind of ‘don’t care’ attitude which has angered the people most. First there is corruption, and then there is no remorse for doing corruption.

Overconfidence

The UPA II is blessed with one silver lining that the opposition was in absolute disarray throughout the period. At no single point, the entire opposition projected a united face to cause any harm to this government. This resulted in some sort of overconfidence in Congress leadership. They started believing that they are invincible and only god can stop them. They started almost challenging the opposition whenever they raised their voices, to bring a no-confidence motion. Incidentally, the opposition was never so much disunited in history, as it is now. Due to the increased power of regional forces, all of them have started stressing and forcing their importance in the national role. It is hard to defeat Mamta, Jayalalitha, Mulayam / Mayawati and Patnaik on their home turf today. At the same time, their views on national agenda are equally divergent and not in unison. This has given breather to the Congress on many issues like Presidential elections and FDI bill. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the real credit of survival of UPA II goes to the opposition.    

However, as a rule of nature, an overconfident person becomes reckless and his chances of committing mistakes increase many fold. It is this overconfidence which is making Beni Prasad Verma to openly criticize Mulayam and Shinde to send CBI to Stalin’s house immediately after DMK withdrew support to UPA. The overconfidence of Congress is bound to bring them down sooner or later.

Weakening Power Centre

Even a child knows that Manmohan does anything exactly as Sonia directs him to do. He has absolutely no say in the decision making on any point of national importance. Rahul Gandhi has been elevated formally as Vice President, but everyone knows that his meetings with office bearers are more or less ‘moral class’ lectures, which do not mean anything in reality. Very soon, all the general secretaries of Congress are going to get frustrated at being led by a person who is not only incapable of leading them through decision making, but does not even understand any issues put forward to him.

Therefore, the only remaining power centre in Congress is Sonia Gandhi. She has not remained the same person she was 15 years ago, when she took over the leadership of Congress. Much water has flown under the bridge since then. She has become old, she is suffering from some disease for which she is taking treatment abroad, and her priorities are very different today than what they were some time back. Her predicament is very similar to that of Balasaheb Thakre, who had appealed to the party workers in his last Dassera address, ’to accept and adjust with Uddhav and Aditya for however they are…’

She wants to retire in peace whenever Rahul is ready to take the mantle. But that day is stretching much farther than her imagination. She seems to have been fed up with the various power struggles within the government and the Congress. This could be her last election as President of Congress.

If Manmohan is ever asked, ‘What are your 3 mistakes of your life?’ he would undoubtedly reply, ‘CWG, 2G and Sonia ji’.