Delhi CM Designate Arvind Kejriwal yesterday met the President and the Home Minister, and from what is being reported, he has started off in the right earnest. He raised the issue of full statehood for Delhi at their first meeting with Rajnath Singh itself, showing his determination to get this done. He also met Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu and asked him to sort out issues of agricultural land in rural areas and for additional land to build schools, colleges and parking lots in the city.
He also asked his Chief Secretary to prepare an action plan on how to implement AAP’s 70 point agenda as per its manifesto. All concerned departments have been asked to make power-point presentations in this respect within the one week of Kejriwal becoming CM. This is very reminiscent of how Modi took stock of all departments once he became PM asking them to prepare presentations too.
But what are his team members and colleagues doing? Quite the opposite some would say. AAP MLA from Okhla, Amanatullah Khan has already termed the Batla house encounter as “fake”. He has said he would seek a probe into this matter. Raking up such sensitive issues to appease a section of the society is not a good sign. Highly amusing is the fact that Amanantullah is the person who AAP alleged put communally sensitive posters in the run up to the Delhi elections, and seeked his arrest, but now he is an AAP MLA.
Interestingly, Amanatullah who has confessed that he put up posters, is not being arrested. Police is arresting only AAP people.
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) July 18, 2014
Amanatullah, can of course be brushed off as a “fringe element”, but Kumar Vishwas is core team member. Vishwas, is said to have branded the NSG commandos who offer security as “informers”. He said that “Arvind Kejriwal did not need VIP security since the security persons around him are informers“. Raising question marks over the loyalty of the NSG, whose commandos are well trained to defend the country, may be justified to an extent when one is not part of the establishment. But it is not becoming of the ruling party to cast aspersions on our armed forces. Vishwas anyway is an experienced loose cannon and Kejriwal will have to control him.
Although it is too early to judge, is this a measured approach from AAP? Where Arvind Kejriwal keeps talking about administration and governance, while “fringe elements” make communally polarising statements and Kumar Vishwas takes on the role of AAP’s Digvijay Singh, to sow seeds of distrust against our own establishments, thus presenting Kejriwal as the outsider underdog who will continually fight the system even though he is also a part of the system.
