If Congress’ prime ministerial candidate for 2019 Rahul Gandhi has resorted to using heart emojis, like a twelve-year-old schoolgirl high on Snapchat, in his tweets to make a political point, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, upset with the ecosystem ditching him in favour of Rahul Gandhi has started the process to woo back the favour.
And as Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal draw inspiration from each other on how to conduct themselves in public, with Rahul learning a few stunts from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Kejriwal has again gone back to taking lessons from Rahul.
Aam Aadmi Party chief, on Sunday, decided to tear up the Delhi LG’s report on CCTV cameras.
#WATCH: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal tears a report of a Lieutenant Governor committee on CCTV cameras in Delhi saying, ”Janta ki marzi hai ki is report ko phaad do. Janta janardan hai jantantra mein” pic.twitter.com/eE5FYSJtJ3
— ANI (@ANI) July 29, 2018
In the video, while addressing a crowd gathered, Kejriwal says that the ‘Janta’ wants me to tear up the report, and since the will of people is the will of God, I will tear it up. And then a smiling Kejriwal tears up the report. This reminded me of the time when in September 2013, the then Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, in a major embarrassment to Congress had stormed into a press conference being addressed by Ajay Maken and torn up the ordinance on convicted politicians.
Rahul Gandhi had called an ordinance brought out by his own government as ‘nonsense’ and given his personal opinion that the ordinance should be ‘torn up and thrown out’. In 2012, too, during a rally in Uttar Pradesh, Rahul had torn off a ‘list of promises’ made by Mayawati and Mulayam Singh to Uttar Pradesh during elections.
The report, which Kejriwal tore up, was of the committee the LG had set up, which comprised of police personnel. The report said that those getting the CCTV cameras installed in Delhi, even from their own money, will have to get a licence from the police. To that, Kejriwal took a dig at the police and insinuated that getting a licence would mean bribing the police.
Report of LG’s committee whose members are police personnel, says if someone installs CCTV cameras in Delhi, even with their own money, they’ll have to get license from police. License means ‘paisa chadhao, license le jaao’: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal before tearing the report pic.twitter.com/eBGuhJgBoJ
— ANI (@ANI) July 29, 2018
He then said that he would be signing a file today that no licence is required to install the CCTV cameras. He mocked Delhi Police and asked ‘Does Police need another avenue to make illicit money?’ In the run-up to the 2015 Delhi Assembly election, Arvind Kejriwal in his manifesto had promised to install 15 lakh CCTV cameras across the state ‘to improve women’s safety’, which was shrugged away by Sanjay Singh, who is now AAP’s Rajya Sabha MP.
But in his defence, Kejriwal need not have learnt the trick of putting up a public spectacle of things from Rahul Gandhi, because before all this, in August 2011, Arvind Kejriwal had burnt a copy of Lokpal bill during the protests which tricked thousands of people into believing that Kejriwal could be a better alternative.
The Delhi LG office, in response to the CCTV issue, has said that the over 2 lakh CCTV cameras as installing across the city without coordination and that it requires proper framework and information mechanism.
There’ve been reported instances of misuse of CCTVs for intrusion&compromises on privacy of individuals. Use of surveillance camera system shouldn’t be permitted to become tool to violate privacy of individuals which has been held to be fundamental right by SC: LG Office response
— ANI (@ANI) July 29, 2018
The LG office said that the use of surveillance cameras should not become a tool to violate the privacy of individuals which is a fundamental right. Earlier, too, we had reported how Kejriwal wanted CCTV cameras installed in schools classrooms to wash his hands off his duty of ensuring the safety of children in school.
This stunt of Kejriwal just appears like one more of his attempt to shrug off the responsibility of ensuring safety and blame either ‘lack of CCTV cameras’ or ‘Delhi Police is not with us’ in case the CCTV cameras are installed and they require police intervention.
Amidst all this Kejriwalification of Rahul and Rahulization of Kejriwal and the tussle between Delhi CM and Delhi LG, the same ‘janta’ they all keep talking about is here, watching.
