Anna Hazare, the mentor of Arvind Kejriwal has over the years become disgruntled with his protegee to a point that he has started to regularly criticise him.
The first divide between him and Kejriwal was noted soon after the latter resigned from his ill-fated 49 day government, when Anna called AAP “power hungry.”
After Kejriwal stormed to power in 2015 by winning a brute mandate of 67 seats, it looked as if things were mending between Guru and Chela, but AAP minister Sandeep Kumar’s sex CD surfaced, Anna expressed grief over the AAP’s condition saying that he had a lot of expectation from Kejriwal.
Anna in December 2016, signalled that their relationship was fractured beyond repair, by writing an emotional letter to Kejriwal for the lack of transparency in the donations received by the party.
Anna continued to take jibes at Kejriwal after the latter decided to start blaming EVMs for his party tasting defeats in assembly elections of Punjab and Goa. Anna took a contradictory position by claiming that the use of EVMs should continue and stated that, “those who are voicing doubt over the machines are trying to take us back in time”.
After Kejriwal suffered a humiliating defeat in the Delhi MCD polls, Anna was back, and claimed that Kejriwal has lost the trust of people.
Now Anna is back in the news again for the same reason. In New Delhi on Monday, Anna Hazare was asked whether a leader like Arvind Kejriwal would ever come out of his movement again.
Anna in response categorically dismissed the same by strongly asserting that he would make sure that it would never happen again. He claimed that earlier he wasn’t very alert regarding this matter, but henceforth if anyone wises to join him, they would need to sign an affidavit that they won’t join any political party or contest elections.
No it will never happen again,I will make sure. I was not very alert then but now before joining me person has to give affidavit saying they won’t join any political party or fight elections: Anna Hazare on being asked if a leader like Kejriwal will come out of his movement again pic.twitter.com/aPCnJRaHL6
— ANI (@ANI) January 15, 2018
He had made a similar statement in December, 2017 by driving home the point that he hopes no Kejriwal emerges from his movement again.
It remains to be seen what response Kejriwal has, if any, to the disgruntlement of his former mentor and whether he would take solid corrective measures, to somehow try and mend the relationship between him and Anna.
