On Thursday night last week, when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Arvind Kejriwal, the customary word of support started to emerge from the opposition ranks. Congress Delhi state president Arvinder Singh Lovely along with a former president Subhash Chopra and a former member of the Lok Sabha Sandeep Dikshitvisited Kejriwal’s residence that night to stand in solidarity.
The presence of the former MP, who criticised the arrest in strong words, spoke of the quantum of irony the whole situation contained. Arvind Kejriwal started his career promsing to jail this former MP’s late mother Sheila Dikshit. Kejriwal got catapulted to the centrestage of politics undergoing a 14-day fast in 2013 to put pressure on the then Sheila Dikshit government for action over ‘inflated’ water and electricity bills.
Despite taking Delhi on the path of unprecedented development in terms of both infrastructure and services and creating a culture of citizen first, Dikshit was handed over a humiliating end to her tenure by voters of Delhi, who preferred Kejriwal’s ‘gurantee’ of free power and free water to a life of quality.He had defeated Sheila Dikshit in the New Delhi constituency by a margin of 22,000 votes in his poll debut in 2013.
Though Sandeep Dikshit was there to stand in solidarity, somewhere he must have felt avenged that the man who threw baseless charges of corruption on his mother was being taken into custody in a corruption case. The irony in his arrest was further reflected in the statement of anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare, who once groomed Kejriwal. While Kejirwal called Anna his guru, the latter was soon to disown the Delhi chief minister as his protégé. Hazare said, “I felt bad that Arvind Kejriwal who used to work with me and raised his voice against liquor, is himself making liquor policy.”
Kejriwalrose to prominence using the medium of media and politically managed events with Anna Hazare as show-stopper to create ‘widespread public anger over big-ticket corruption charges’ on the then Congress-led UPA regime. His first step towards a tumultuous political journey was knocking down Sheila Dikhsit government bringing a plethora of baseless charges against her government.
Dikshit lived for another six-years but the charges which Kejriwal had labelled against her could never be pressed. Five years after her death, in an ironical turn of events her main tormentor himself found the cops at his doorsteps for charges of swindling public money.
Kejriwal’s decade long journey is that of a grand show of political trapeze. Be it joining the INDIA bloc of opposition parties, whose leaders he earlier slammed over corruption issues, or adopting a ‘soft Hindutva’ approach exemplified by his free pilgrimage scheme and the recent chanting of ‘Jai Sri Ram’ slogans in the Delhi Assembly. Last Diwali he had even demanded to put photos of Ganesha and Lakshmi on currency notes for the economic prosperity of the country.
The irony gets bigger in the fact that Kejriwal’s defence is being led by the Congress party, despite realising his role in diminishing its political strength in the Lok Sabha to an all-time low of a mere 44 seats and zero seats in Delhi assembly for the two consecutive terms.
Kejriwal continues with his theatrics threatening to run the government from jail. But the time has is now running out for histrionix as evident from the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear his petition on the night of the arrest. The next morning he was remanded for six days of custody by the trial court.
This too ironical as he had promised to send himself and collagues to jail if they were ever charged of corruption, now they are contest incarceration. Holi this year indeed comes with a lot of political hue of many shades.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice