Arvind Kejriwal – Delhi’s chief minister – now synonymous with the newest entrant in national politics, the Aap Aadmi Party – after he executed a deliberate purge to remove his political opponents and potential threats from the party. He is very active on social media the nation knows it. But there are no tweets on it. His Twitter page on September 12 has four tweets – but nothing not on it.
On September 1, he had tweeted, while conveying his ‘heartfelt’ thanks to some folks for a ‘rockstar-esque’ show to formally unveil the AAP’s student wing, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) - Thanx @VishalDadlani, @AstitvaTheBand, @shilparao11, @jasleenroyal n @tweetfromRaghu for supporting honest politics n for always being there
On the same day, he ‘proudly’ retweeted a report with his photograph addressing the CYSS ‘rock concert’.
Manish Sisodia – Delhi’s deputy chief minister and Arvind Kejriwals’s most trusted ‘yes man’. Like his boss Arvind Kejriwal, like his party and like his other party members, he, too, has sustained social media presence. The ‘expressivity’ there – direct on intended – happens in real time. But his Twitter page, too, is black on it, in spite of being well populated. His Twitter handle, so far, has failed to express his conscious with no tweets – in fact his Twitter page has no tweets on September 12 when the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) election results were announced.
Nagender Sharma – media advisor of Arvind Kejriwal – loads of retweets and some tweets on September 12 and 13 but nothing on this humiliating loss, yes humiliating, in DUSU polls – after much pomp and show, hype and claims – anyway, by the very nature of his job, he is compelled to reply to or write only the stuff that keeps his party in good light.
Irrespective of what they have been saying (or claiming the sky), or not saying now, the results of the DUSU polls are the most potent symbolism of the fact that people are moving away from the AAP, from the promises it made, from the hopes it raised – the hopes that look compromised now, with the party just seven months into the government.
Like manipulative seasoned politicians, and not like what they had claimed to be when they were asking for votes in the Delhi assembly election, what is expected from the AAP is a measured silence on this debacle followed by lame justifications and sham denials.
Downward spiral for the party began soon after Arvind Kejriwal took over as the chief minister of Delhi again in February this year. With 67 out of 70 seats in the Delhi assembly, he soon started acting unilaterally, silencing and sacking voices he didn’t feel comfortable with. What was more disturbing was the attitude. He and his party did all the anti-common men acts displaying a sort of indifference towards the moral ethos of honest politics.
There was no rush to act anti-VIP this time. Ministers and legislators happily accepted accommodations and vehicles. People from the world over all flocking to India for healthcare facilities and it means the problems that derails with our public healthcare system is hurting from within. Well, we all know that, including the AAP leaders. Yet, its two leaders, one Delhi minister and other a non-minister but enjoying ministerial rank salary, chose to fly to the United Kingdom to study healthcare system there, obviously in the name of introducing those ‘better practices’ back home – when Delhi boasts one of the best civic amenities in India and the problems that beset it require an internal rectification.
Apart from many ministers, there are pseudo-ministers, and loads of them, enjoying full time legislative salaries (the money that could have been spent on public welfare). There have been and there are elements of confrontational politics dominating the governance in Delhi. There are sky high promises made during the campaigning phase, but as the time is passing, people are realizing that they were nothing but poll gimmicks.
Gimmicks, like this one, the rockstar-esque show to formally introduce to the world the ‘CYSS’ some days back. A fat sum went into organizing the show but the party leaders marketed it in the name of ‘honest politics’ – even if such events pollute student politics. Well, it could have looked an ‘honest attempt’ had it not been for the dazzling rock concert associated with it giving a rock star welcome to Arvind Kejriwal and his band.
The way it was organized, as an election tool, just before the polls, looked bad in taste. And it was made bitter by the consistent downslide of values by the AAP. The AAP had claimed students and youngsters as its first political constituency but the DUSU poll results show that base is fast eroding.
But going by the trend of these seven months in governance, the party is not going to read the signs that are becoming more and more visible by the day – with the clear (and hostile) social message in this first big symbolic political loss.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
