WHY "COMMUNALISM" IS A BIGGER ISSUE THAN "CORRUPTION" FOR KEJRIWAL ?-by RAJEEV GUPTA

Aam Aadmi Party was formed by Kejriwal to encash the growing anger of the public against the corruption which was witnessed during the Anna Movement. The huge crowd that was seen at Ramlila Maidan, India Gate and Jantar Mantar tempted Kejriwal and his trusted associates to taste the fruits of the politics as it was widely perceived by them that if they do not form a political party at this juncture, the entire benefit of this movement will be hijacked by the main opposition party BJP.

With these thoughts, Kejriwal and his party AAP contested the Delhi Assembly Elections shouting everywhere that he wants to fight against the corruption and Shiela Dikshit will be sent to Jail after his party comes to power in Delhi. The another major promise which was made by him was that he will bring a Janlokpal Bill in Delhi.


Initially neither people nor other political parties took any of these promises made by Kejriwal seriously and if his party was able to win 28 seats in Delhi Assembly, it was only because that people of Delhi believed that Kejriwal and his party will do something to eradicate the corruption and provide a clean and effective governance.

What actually happened in his 49-days rule in Delhi, is a history now and people will like to forget this misrule as early as possible. Sending Shiela Dikshit to jail based on the 370 pages document was not practicable thing as we have seen that she has already been appointed as Governor of Kerala which provides her complete immunity from all types of prosecutions.

Similarly, when Parliament has already passed the Lokpal Bill (whether it is acceptable to AAP or not is another matter of debate), there is no point in making a false promise that another Lokpal under a new name- “Janlokpal” will be passed by the Delhi Government. Delhi already has a Lokayukt Act which was brought by the BJP when it was in power in Delhi.

States can only have “Lokayukts” and not “Lokpals”. Public is unfortunately not aware of these fine legal complexities and is carried away by what Kejriwal promised him. The whole thing was messed up in a manner which enabled Kejriwal to quit the Delhi Government after 49 days to start the work on his dream project of “Mission Lok Sabha 2014.”

What happened after Kejriwal quit the Delhi Government is a history and has already been widely reported in Media. He was criticized for his failure and gross inability to rule the small state like Delhi by the people and Media. This criticism further angered Kejriwal who was the darling of the Media and not used to such type of criticism. He was further caught red handed on a You Tube Video wherein he was trying to fix his interview with a senior TV Journalist.

By now, Kejriwal understood well that he can not fight the Lok Sabha Elections on the issue of “corruption” because of two reasons. First, he and his party did nothing to eradicate the corruption in his 49 days rule in Delhi and people were of the view that he formed the Government with Congress and in return allowed Shiela Dikshit to escape to Raj Bhawan of Kerala.

Since Kejriwal is a man in a hurry, without wasting any further time, he junked the issue of “corruption” and started saying everywhere that “communalism” is a bigger issue than "corruption" and infact, he intends to fight this “communalism” first.

Kejriwal must have thought that the corruption is an issue only with the urban middle class which is in any case is divided and his party will not get 100% urban middle class votes. On the contrary, if he raises the issue of “communalism”, he will get minority vote and support, which is most likely to be undivided and he may get near 100% support from minority voters.

Whosoever wants to project himself as the fighter against the communalism, has nothing to do, but to start criticising Narendra Modi on 24 hours basis and his work is almost done. That is what Kejriwal is doing. Whether he will succeed in his designs - only time will tell. more