Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s Chief
Minister of 49 days resigned a few hours ago. He blamed the opposition
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the supporters, Congress for his resignation.
Earlier today he tried to table an anti corruption bill (Jan Lokpal bill),
which the Lt. Governor of Delhi has ruled as unconstitutional saying the bill
requires approval from the union government. In his defense Kejriwal had
sighted previous bills passed without the approval of the union government by
the earlier Congress government. The constitutionality of the bill is for the
experts to decide. But what Kejriwal did today can be termed as an act of
running away from his responsibilities.
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| I won't play anymore |
He conducted an SMS referendum
before accepting the outside support from Congress. However, today there was no
such referendum before his resignation. 30% people who voted for Kejriwal
during the assembly elections last December have been betrayed. The promises
Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) made were hardly fulfilled, apart from a
big handout in form of state subsidy for water charges. The most important and
long lasting promises like improving the education and health facilities were
not even delivered.
What Kejriwal did deliver was a lot
of theatrics. Mid night raids on African nationals in name of drugs and prostitution,
sit in protests in the heart of the city, sleeping on the pavement overnight,
filing high profile police complaints on sub judice matters and making some
vague corruption claims. In his 49 days of Chief Ministership he never talked
about a long term solution to any of the problems he highlighted during his
protest days. His most talked about point, corruption hinged completely on
introduction of the Jan Lokpal bill. From our experience we know that bills
alone cannot bring corruption down, especially the one that affects the common
man. The solution is to remove personnel interference in the processes and
automate/digitize them. When there are will be no people involved in the
process there won’t be any one asking for a bribe. But Kejriwal chose the high decibel,
attention seeking tactics instead of doing actual work.
The reason given by Kejriwal for
his resignation today will raise many questions in the coming days. The most
obvious one will be, “why didn't he take the legal course to justify the constitutionality
of the bill and push it through, even if it took more time”? This is an
important question because he has now lost the chance the people of Delhi gave
him. He did not use it to deliver his promise but blew it away in indulging in
funny theatrics. Even if he returns to power in the next elections with an
absolute majority, the constitutionality of the bill will still hold as it does
today. Whom shall he blame then?
During the hay days of AAP, just
before the elections last year, only 30% of the people in Delhi voted for AAP, this
in other words 70% of Delhi rejected AAP. The interesting thing is that AAP got
a lot of votes from the fence sitters, people who could not choose between the
traditional parties BJP and Congress. It also got a lot of vote from the young
voters, many of them first timers. This section is most vulnerable to defection
since they see that their party of choice made a lot of noise but did little
work in the past 49 days. Delhi is most likely to go to polls once again along
with the Lok Sabha polls in April – May. It won’t come as a surprise if AAP
actually sees a fall in its vote share.
