The BJP is lucky: it couldn’t have found a more able abettor than the Congress-appointed lieutenant-governor, Najeeb Jung. Whenever Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tries to get a job done, the L-G thwarts it pronto. It’s clear the L-G has an agenda: to prevent the AAP government from functioning. It appears equally clear the directives are coming from the Centre.
It’s no secret that the BJP and the AAP hate each other’s guts. As a consequence, it’s the people who are paying the price. But they’re not fools, they’re not going to continue to be scapegoats. After all, it’s they who gave both these parties the dream majority they hadn’t even imagined, one in the Lok Sabha, the other in the Assembly. And in this instance, they know exactly what game is being played.
Now we have the (now former) Delhi law minister being hauled over coals for faking degrees. Okay, so Jitender Singh Tomar lied. Punish him. Strip him of his portfolio. From all accounts, Smriti Irani and Rahul Gandhi, among many others who got away, also bluffed about their academic achievements. Clearly bad form, but not a criminal act, surely, warranting a midnight arrest by a posse of cops? What about every third sitting MP who, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms, has a criminal record?
We cannot condone a government that deliberately jeopardises governance. It seems there’s also an element of class discrimination here. The AAP mostly represents the lower and lower middle-classes, basically, ordinary folk, after the intellectuals vaporised along with Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan. For this support base, what matters is bijli-sadak-pani, roti-kapda-makaan. Preventing the government from working goes against the right of these citizens to access their needs. It is they who give parties a majority, and they who can sink them. If the BJP thinks its game-plan will finish the AAP, it should think again because it might well be sinking its own ship.
Deputy Editor
(This article was published on June 17, 2015)
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