Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken speaks to New Indian Express Editorial Director Prabhu Chawla on the party’s performance in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls held last year, its chances in the 2015 Delhi polls and on Kiran Bedi on Sachchi Baat on India News.
PC: Have you been demoted?
AM: No. I am a grounded leader. I have been chosen as the people’s representative to raise the public’s voice and message.
PC: Have they declared you the chief ministerial candidate?
AM: I am the chief of the campaign committee. Our party has no tradition of announcing a CM candidate.
PC: Congress is losing everywhere.
AM: No. There is a difference between this election and the other elections. Congress was in power in the states we lost. There is Delhi government in Delhi. The people have seen BJP and AAP in Delhi in a year’s time. Neither has performed well enough to get the votes. The electricity and water situation has deteriorated. The crime rate has gone up.
PC: Their candidates are famous. Will it help them?
AM: They are Magsaysay Award winners. I am a grounded person. I have won the best MLA award on the terms of best performance. People have sent me to power three times. I believe in vision. You are saying that Kiran Bedi is a big candidate. Does Delhi BJP have no state level candidate that it has fielded her in the polls?
PC: I am saying something else. Would the result be different for Congress had they declared the CM candidate?
AM: Congress never announces candidates.
PC: They have done that in 2008 and 2013.
AM: Sheilaji’s name was announced for the term after she gave two terms.
PC: Your senior leaders are leaving the party.
AM: Who?
PC: Krishna Tirath has been an MP and MLA and she left the party.
AM: The ‘big leaders’ had to surrender their deposits. They weren’t given the ticket. BJP gave her the ticket. She has been an independent charge minister at the centre. She has been a deputy speaker. Then, she got the independent charge before I did. I was still a minister of state. And she got upset and I didn’t. She is an opportunist. BJP is a party of opportunists. Kiran Bedi backstabbed Anna Hazare. She was upset with Kejriwal that he joined politics. Now, she is fulfilling her political ambitions.
PC: There is Janardhan Diwedi in the Congress. He said something about PM Modi recently. Is there a feeling that big leaders in the Congress can’t make the party win polls?
AM: Not everyone is the same.
PC: Many left in Uttar Pradesh. Many left in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.
AM: Whenever it happens to political parties in elections, a lot of people leave. People who are not attached to ideology break away in that manner. They can leave. It means that those people are power seekers. My grandparents were freedom fighters and my great grandfather was a freedom fighter. Our family has made sacrifices. Politics is a not a profession for us. We are not power-hung. We have come to serve the country and the society. We are with the Congress owing to an ideological leaning. We are here because of the policies and secular thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru. We are here because of Indira’s thought.
PC: Where is that Congress today?
AM: BJP at one point of time had only two MPs.
PC: They must have been credible people.
AM: Even we have credibility. I was minister in centre and state government. There is not a single blot on my name. I have been an MLA three times and an MP two times.
PC: Did Congress win only eight seats in Delhi before the 2014 polls?
AM: We were at five in 1977. We suffered because of the image. Our numbers went down. The party will rebuild itself with the core ideology. All our fair-weather friends will leave.
PC: Is Congress being cleaned by the people who are leaving?
AM: Yes. The opportunists are leaving. The person who had to surrender deposit has left for the party she was contesting against for years.
PC: Should people who have no faith in their party be allowed to leave?
AM: There is no difference between party, ideology and leadership. Those who don’t believe in all three should leave.
PC: Do people like Krishna Tirath fall in that category?
AM: Yes. They are there for power.
PC: What about Janardhan Diwedi?
AM: He has given a clarification and has said something to Anthonyji, who is the chairman of the disciplinary action committee.
PC: Why should people vote for the Congress?
AM: You asked a good question. There are many people in the Congress who have been MLAs who are as capable, experienced and honest as I am. Dr Kiran Walia is one of them. She has served for 15 years. There are leaders like Yoganand Shastri, Haroon Yusuf, Arvinder Singh Lovely, including me. They are spotless.
PC: Even Kejriwal is spotless. What’s the difference?
AM: We are honest and spotless — despite the fact that there were many opportunities when we would have slipped. In Congress there is Suresh Kalmadi. And then, in the same party, there is Ajay Maken who sends Suresh Kalmadi to jail. Every party has good and bad people. Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi are honest because they did not get a chance. We are honest despite the fact that we got a chance. BJP doesn’t consider the experienced people capable enough. Coming to Kiran Bedi, there is a difference between bureaucrat and political executive.
PC: Even Manmohan Singh was a bureaucrat. He became the prime minister.
AM: He was a finance minister before that. The bureaucrat has the experience of implementing political vision. Is there a political vision in the things she is talking about? She has forgotten about corruption. She won’t be doing anything. She is saying that she will report to work at 9 am and 10 am. It’s expected out of you. What is your vision for Delhi? I asked her to debate with me and Kejriwal. She is not ready for it.
PC: Why should she argue with you?
AM: Why not?
PC: Even Kejriwal refused to argue with you. Do they consider you small?
AM: Why small? We got 25 per cent votes last time. BJP came to power with 282 seats with just 29 per cent votes. Twenty five percent votes – not a small number. We can be the biggest party with seven to eight per cent votes in the assembly polls. Why can’t there be an increase for us?
PC: Is there a wave against Modiji in the last seven to eight months?
AM: Is Modiji contesting the polls? They had no other face in Maharashtra, Hayana and Jammu and Kashmir apart from Modiji. They are totally nervous in Delhi. Hence, they brought in Kiran Bedi. They can blame her for the defeat.
PC: Have they given Delhi a good leader? Are they building a strong team?
AM: She has no administrative experience.
PC: Are you promising freebies in competition with Kejriwal? Where will the money come from?
AM: Kejriwal gave subsidy. We can give it without using the tax payer’s money. The stealing of electricity has come down to 41 per cent after privatisation. It can be passed on to the consumer.
PC: Did the contract you signed not benefit the distributor?
AM: No. Their rate of return can’t be more than 16 per cent. They show capital expansion.
PC: All the wires and electricity poles are down.
AM: Where has all that money gone?
PC: Are you not against CAG too?
AM: I said as a cabinet minister that they should be brought under audit.
PC: Did your government let it happen?
AM: The court stopped it. Now the court has allowed. If the capital expansion is checked and the audit is done then the public will get the money back. People will get their share of the profit earned by the private companies.
PC: Why does your manifesto have so many repetitions and unfulfilled promises?
AM: We have fulfilled more than 80 per cent of the promises.
PC: Delhi has become a worse place to live.
AM: It has happened in the last one year.
PC: Did Soniaji make the promise of making you a CM candidate?
AM: I am the campaign committee chairman. No such promises were made to me. I am contesting for the post of an MLA. The decision will be made by Soniaji and the Congress legislative party after the results.
PC: How many seats will you get?
AM: We will get a majority. If we lose, it will be my defeat. If we win, it will be the victory of people.
PC: Thanks for coming to our studio.
AM: Thanks.