Has a leader of a ruling party ever been able to convince his voters that he is not responsible for any of the wrongs that happened during his tenure?
I think, Arvind Kejriwal would be the only leader to achieved this feat!
You could look back and try to find one instance where you were able to hold him accountable for anything, 2013 and onward, the first time we came to know about him; anyone but not him has been held accountable for whatever bad happened in Delhi.
The question is not why he did what he did. It is straight forward, there can’t be a better environment for a politician where he cannot be held accountable. The real question however, is “what did he do to create such an environment?”
Do you listen carefully to the fitness tips shared by a guy in the gym with visible six packs? Why do kids buy cricket bats with an MRF logo on it? Because the buyers want to be like the person who is endorsing the product. Every young cricket player wants to be Sachin Tendulkar so they buy bats with the logo MRF, even though the logo has nothing to do with cricket!. Every gym goer wants to be like the guy with the six packs so listens to him, even if the tips are complete bull shit. Every successful salesman sells himself before selling the actual product. Have you ever seen a dark skinned person promoting fairness cream or fat person promoting a gym?
In case of Arvind Kejriwal, we bought him hands down even before he started to pitch, his superb credentials! We want to be like him, everyone wants to graduate from an elite institution, all engineering aspirants would do anything to get a place in IIT, half of the crowd would do anything to crack civil services and the other half would do anything to get married to a civil services officer. He comes from a middle class family, has a life exactly like what we want, a satisfactorily successful married life with two kids. So, when he started talking, we listened, believed and bought whatever crap he had to sell.
Even though a salesman and a con-man look alike, talk alike, sell alike, there is a small difference, a successful salesman sells something that is best of the customer and a con-man sells what is best for him.
Arvind Kejriwal sold a concept, an idea that says “we the common people of India are capable enough to understand the intricacies of the system; understand how different entities like different departments/authorities interact with each other” When he said we are in full control and can decide independently as to who/which department is at fault, we believed him.
He created a Bermuda Triangle like situation in Delhi with AAP, MCD and the LG as the three vertices of the triangle and made people run from one point to the other creating the edges of the triangle. This was just enough to disorient people. People could only see the edges which they traversed while running from one point to another, and the issues just disappeared.
We justified his resignation after a mere 49 days believing that Congress was not letting him work; RIP Janlokpal!! People voted him to power with an absolute majority i.e. 67 out of 70 seats. Little did the people know that they will be listening to the same rhetoric except he would blame BJP this time.
Who should take the ownership of the fire in an illegal factory that killed more than 45 people a couple of months ago? If it were any other state be it congress ruled or BJP ruled or ruled by any other party, people would have pointed the fingers straight at the head of the state, end of discussion. Fair and square! But in Delhi, some died in the fire and many were busy finding out the department that messed up; was it the electricity department? or was it the fire department? was it a residential colony or something else? and so on and so forth.
This is not by far an isolated instance. For the first four years of his tenure he kept on blaming LG for obstructing his work. Every other week he would be on streets, LG is not letting them work. It indeed was an spectacular view, the government with an absolute majority protesting on streets. He spawned so much venom that in 2016 he was rated as the most hated person in India. Why did he do this? He is too smart to do anything this consistently for no reason. By pulling of this stunt, he engraved this triangle in the minds of the voters. We, not only the voters in Delhi but everyone in India subconsciously started thinking on these lines “Let us figure out what is going on by ourselves” The point of discussion became if the LG, BJP, MCD are not letting him work rather than if Aam Aadmi Party is working at all.
Another example – why is Delhi so polluted? Because the neighboring states burn crop residue or fire crackers on Diwali! What is it?
What happened as a result? On the election day, the voters instead of answering the question “Did the government fix their issues?” They were finding an answer to “Did someone not let them work?” Voting was not done on work done, voters already knew there was hardly any work done; Pollution still on the rise, Yamuna still dirty, infrastructure for electric buses still missing, CCTV cameras for security still missing, 500 new government schools that were to be built in five years still missing, the list goes on. Voters voted on the tiff between authorities, who the voters thought was at fault. Some who could not find out did not turn up to vote, which might explain an extremely low voter turn out. Skip the question if you don’t know the answer, there is negative marking, every incorrect vote pushes the deserving party behind by 2 votes. Many voted for the freebies that were offered and the Muslim community decided to vote for AAP instead of Congress.
I did not make the last line of the previous paragraph up. There are data evidences suggesting that. For example AAP’s biggest vote share gain compared to 2015 came from Mustafabad (23.07%) which is the same constituency where Congress’ vote share decreased by 28%. Also about the freebies, the poor voters voted more for AAP and the percentage decreased with the increasing wealth of the voters. It was other way around for BJP. The following picture shows it clearly:
AAP did not win on the work they did in last five years, not at all. The very same thing is going to happen five years later, unless people stop trying to understand the system and simply start questioning the person they voted this time. The system is extremely complex, I guess the world complex would do injustice with its usage here.
I know it is extremely difficult with the people of my generation to say “I don’t know”, we are “we know it all generation” but that does not change the fact that understanding the intricacies of the system is not our cup of tea. But having said that, we can read. Have you read the report Kejriwal and his party published for showing the number of files struck down by the office of the LG? It would be interesting read now because now you would know why LG did not approve them (read AAP’s advertisement policies). You could read the summary of the report by me “SC’s (L-G vs AAP) verdict: An inevitable, silent but deadly storm approaching Delhi“. Mr. Kejriwal wanted the center to fund his advertisement schemes and the Great Delhi Sale (free free free) but the LG saw that coming way back.
For example, the LG did not approve of the Delhi Government’s request of installing large displays in the public areas for “conveying information in case of natural calamities” that would have costed more than 100 crore to the center. Why? If you were watching TV before Delhi elections you could just count the number of minutes the advertisements for AAP are aired in one hour. I mean come on, you can be a graduate from IIT but you cannot expect the LG to be that dumb that he would sanction 160 crores to you from the center for your own advertisements in the name of natural calamities. Those displays would all be displaying the same advertisements that were being aired on the TV. Another interesting point was opening Mohalla Clinics in the school premises. This is one of the best ways to manipulate a voter’s mindset through his/her children and no body would ever understand what just happened. You can make a parent do a lot of stuff through their children. He used his own children to get into the CM’s chair, do you think he would spare yours? Must read Mission Buniyaad: A mission to weaken the foundation, politics at the cost of your children’s future.
Since, elections are over, instead of trying to understand how the system works we should start questioning the person we elect, it is their duty to get the work done, it does not matter how they do it. Politics does not end with winning an election. The elected government has to get the work done, if it can’t it has no right to stay in power.
Also read:
Delhi: Collateral Damage for nation building!!!
Thanks for reading!!! Have a nice week ahead.
