By Sidharth Mishra

Political analysts and media studies scholars world-wide attribute credit to social media for chief minister Arvind Kejriwal coming to power in Delhi in 2013 and prime minister Narendra Modi at the Centre in 2014. It’s true that Arvind Kejriwal, coming from an engineering background, was the first to understand the power of digital technology and turned it into the sinews of his start-up Aam Aadmi Party.

Narendra Modi, given that he is a keen and sharp student of politics, looking at the assembly poll results in Delhi was quick to grasp the power of social media. He made use of it during the 2014 general election, which helped him to come to power with a thumping majority.

The Congress on the other hand refused to learn from the debacle of Delhi in 2013 and went unprepared into 2014 general elections on the social media front. No wonder it lost miserably. Congress leadership failed to fully understand the complexities of a social media success story and continued to commit ‘harakiris’.

By Sidharth Mishra

Last week Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) went on a strike. The agitating teachers marched from Delhi University campus to Delhi Chief Minister’s residence demanding their long pending salaries. This event failed to find space in the columns of the city newspapers next day. It’s another matter that the same newspapers on the said day had filled columns with all kinds of inanities about Delhi government’s ‘yeoman’ efforts.

This has been the general story for the past nine years. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, among other qualities, has show the brazen ability to practise McCarthyism. Now what’s that? McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations specially done in public and in an attention-grabbing manner.

Arvind Kejriwal’s Delhi Model has less to do with governance and/or development but certainly more to do with the politics of fib, based on blatant falsehood. Aap Aadmi Party came to power targeting Sheila Dikshit-led Delhi government of corruption, and promising an honest government.

By Sidharth Mishra

The Sunday before the last, we had the nation glued to the television sets to a post-lunch spectacle of the twin towers built by real estate giant Supertech in Noida being brought down. Some news channels called it as ‘Towers of Corruption’. The channels had a field day, in fact they built up the feverish pitch talking about the event overlooking all the other developments for more than 24 hours.

Many years ago, at a seminar, one had heard the late Finance Minister Arun Jaitley say, “Camera likes sad pictures.” The much adored attorney had gone onto to say, “Camera, per say, likes unhappy people. It likes tragedies. It can capture a flood, an earthquake, and a famine. It can capture very easily an angry man or a suffering person. So if you say this year India had best-ever food grain production in history, which is factually correct, the camera is bored with that item. It doesn’t have any value. It likes a house broken in an earthquake; it doesn’t like the building which is standing erect.”

By Sidharth Mishra

One was pleasantly surprised last week to see a notification from Delhi government banning the use of crackers till January 1, 2023. The element of surprise was the early notification and a good feeling that despite the ongoing political fracas, there were people in the bureaucracy alive to the problems of the people.

The notified ban is similar to the practise in the past years when the Supreme Court, and on its goading the city government, clamped restrictions on the use of crackers during the festival of lights -- Diwali, and the winter marriage season. These bans were notified as part of the steps taken to check ever rising air pollution.

However, in the past the bans came late giving ample time for the sale of crackers in the grey market. Thus despite the ban one always woke up to the morning after Diwali to choking air.

By Sidharth Mishra

In William Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet, there is a discussion on sanity and insanity. Given the ‘insane’ events during the special session of Delhi assembly, convened Friday last, the question arises whether it was a deliberate act to drown the controversy around Excise Policy scam or finding a way out of the cesspool of corruption has become difficult.

To somebody who has followed career graph of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for two decades now, given the current situation, he is making the most ‘rational’ move to defend his party and the government. He has to ensure that the drama of absurd goes on. No wonder there would be a vote of confidence on Monday despite no such demand being made by the Opposition or a direction coming from Raj Niwas.

Delhi government is now functioning with the sole purpose of creating perception that its leader Arvind Kejriwal was an alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Logical construction and argument have given way to irrational and illogical speech.

By Sidharth Mishra

In the ongoing political tussle between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the apologists for the former have been quick to point out that Arvind Kejriwal has turned tables on the BJP. They say that he has managed to change the narrative in the public domain from excise scam to comparison between Delhi’s education model with other states especially those ruled by the BJP.

The elucidation of these apologists accompany daily output of the ‘AAP certifying agency’, which has been working overtime calling its baiters corrupt and giving itself ‘clean chit’ in corruption charges. These are difficult times for the AAP, though its thick skinned leadership may deny it. The ruling party in NCT Delhi hopping from one gimmick to another shows that for once AAP’s barbs-laced politics is not working.

First calling one day special session of the assembly, then extending it by another day to seek vote of confidence when nobody demanded it. This is followed by night-long dharna in Delhi assembly premises demanding resignation of the Lieutenant Governor and finally Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, the main accused in the excise scam, giving himself ‘clean chit’, all reflect at the AAP’s desperate move to remain in news for ‘right reasons’ and drown the charges of corruption against it.

By Sidharth Mishra

“It would be necessary for Indians – Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Parsis and all others to whom India is home – to recognise a common flag to live and die for,” – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi       

On July 22, 1947 a resolution was moved in the Constituent Assembly for the adoption of the Tricolour, as we see in the present form, as the National Flag. The discussion on the flag, which was initiated by Jawaharlal Nehru, had several members expressing sentiments, each defining what the flag meant for them.

While it would be a tall order to recall all, some very representative thoughts much be considered specially in time as hoisting of Tricolour has become part of politics. Soon after Nehru introduced the resolution for adopting the Tricolour, erudite scholar Dr S Radhakrishnan made a beautiful exposition about make-up of the flag.

The learned intellectual, who later became second President of republic, said, “In these difficult days it depends on us under what banner we fight. Here we are putting in the very centre the White, the white of the Sun’s rays. The white means the path of light. There is darkness even at noon as some People have urged, but it is necessary for us to dissipate these clouds of darkness and control our conduct-by the ideal light, the light of truth, of transparent simplicity which is illustrated by the colour of white.

By Sidharth Mishra

Soon after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was founded in 2013, during a television debate its then main ideologue Yogendra Yadav was asked about the ideological moorings of the organisation. He had said that they believed in extracting the best from every ideology. A party which had come into existence to cleanse Indian politics soon took to the vice ways of existing political parties and started to play the caste and communal cards right from 2014 Lok Sabha polls.   

Yogendra Yadav himself became Salim in the quest of Muslim votes on the Gurgaon seat. His compatriot journalist Ashutosh became Ashutosh Gupta in search of Muslim votes while contesting from the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha seat in the same election. Now deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, facing charges of scam has become a descendant of Maharana Pratap, who took on the mighty Mughals.

Under investigations from the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED), Sisodia last week alleged that the BJP had offered to shut all cases against him if he quit AAP and switched sides. “I have received BJP's message – ‘break away from AAP and join BJP, we will get all CBI-ED cases closed’. My reply to BJP - I am a Rajput, a descendant of Maharana Pratap. I will cut off my head but I will not bow down in front of corrupt conspirators. All the cases against me are false. Do whatever you want to do,” Sisodia had claimed in a post on micro-blogging site Twitter.