By Sidharth Mishra

When a community is visited by a catastrophe, a leader given to demagoguery speaks with ‘passion’ to extricate oneself from any criticism. The newspapers in the national Capital decided to billow city’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s appreciation of the rescuers more than the hot winds would have billowed the blaze in Mundka which devoured about 30 lives.

None questioned why public had to run rescue operations for full 90 minutes before the fire-tenders arrived on the scene. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), post the catastrophe, has been firing all cylinders to pass the blame of the aphonic leadership of Delhi BJP, which has been at their wits end on how to respond to the flurry of charges.

By Sidharth Mishra

However, the purpose of using this quote here is to reflect on the politics of subsidy and free services provided by the political parties as major poll promise. Prior to the emergence of Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), this allurement of subsidies were largely limited for the rural voters especially those with agricultural land holdings.

Kejriwal, however, patented the politics of subsidy through a promise of free power and free water to the urban voters of Delhi during the 2015 assembly polls. On coming to power he implemented the promises too, despite much burden on the state’s exchequer and infrastructure, and riding on the popularity of the policy returned to power with thumping majority in 2020.

By Sidharth Mishra

Delhi University has rolled on its centenary celebrations. There has been some articles and news reports in the newspapers, mostly half-baked, on the contribution the university has made in the past 100 years of its existence. One is still to come across any serious analysis of the contribution of the hoary institution, which is also this writer’s alma mater.

Whenever an educational institution reaches a milestone of its existence, it’s the opportune time for it to reflect upon its contribution to the society. In the West, it is now established practise to research and write history of an institution during its jubilee celebrations. In India, the practise, however, has been to bring out self-congratulatory volumes in the genre of coffee table books. Which is what the Delhi University has also done.

By Sidharth Mishra

If one were to write about the moves to ‘revive’ the Congress using a Christian metaphor, one could say that the Mother Superior of a convent called the 10 Janpath has realised that its baptized inmates were not good enough to lead the congregation of the faithfuls. Having realised that she is into seeking help of monks from various monasteries to do a miracle to retain the herd of followers.

One such ‘miracle making monk’, who goes by the name of Prashant Kishor, has just refused to help as he knows that neither miracles happen in politics, nor he has miraculous powers. Congress president Sonia Gandhi may believe that her party like a human body is in the intensive care unit of a hospital and that a shot of life saving drug Coramine can revive it but then it’s a completely misplaced conclusion.

The poor health of the Congress party is due to its loss of presence at the grassroots. The grand old party’s own history is replete with instances and events which helped build it into an organisation with pan-India presence. If the party president is so keen on reviving the organisation may she take a leaf or two out of party’s archival papers.

By Sidharth Mishra

In the medieval times one of the early Sultans to have ruled Delhi, though briefly, was Nasiruddin Mahmud. Historical texts refer to a very interesting fact about how an announcement was made regarding his entry into the court. It would be said, “The rule of the Lord of the world extends from Delhi to Palam.” It’s time that the residents of the 10 Janpath realised if they were in close race with Mahmud.

This comparison was necessitated as Mahmud failed to realise his actual worth and continued to live life, to use much clichéd expression, kingsize. The Nehru-Gandhi family in behaving in similar manner is causing harm to their cause than adding any value to their charisma.

On April 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated on the premises of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library a museum in the memory of every other Prime Minister. Invitations were sent out to the relatives of all the living former Prime Ministers and the next of kin of late former Prime Ministers.

By Sidharth Mishra

Till about a week back, Jahangirpuri was hardly known to the city it exists in. The best introduction to Jahangirpuri beyond the subterranean cultural world of Delhi was that of a Metro station.

Not that Jahagirpuri itself has a great Metro traffic but is connecting station for those going to the new centres of higher education across the border at Sonipat in Haryana. The buses of these institutions frequent Jahagirpuri Metro station for the pick and drop of the students.

Coming back to Jahangirpuri and the other colonies of similar nomenclature, they have always made to headlines for the wrong reasons. Excepting for Janakpuri, which was the first planned sub-city by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), most of the remaining residential colonies going by the name of ‘Puri’ are either resettlement colonies or unauthorized colonies.

By Sidharth Mishra

The summer heat has warmed up politics in the national Capital. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has suddenly become aggressive and its members are out ‘exposing’ the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government. Whether they would be able to have any success in their endeavour only time would say.

The party strategists see AAP now as a real time threat as they could emerge as challengers in the two BJP-ruled states – Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, which are going to the polls next. In their enthusiasm to have a ‘Congress-mukht Bharat’, the party leaders now realize that AAP which till the other day was viewed as convenient tool to cut into the Congress votes was actually now becoming a big time usurper.

In the last round of the assembly polls, AAP formed government in Punjab with a thumping majority and in Uttarakhand and Goa cut into sufficient number of Congress votes to block the grand old party’s attempt at forming the government. There are clear indications that with the Congress in complete disarray, its votes are shifting in bulk and AAP is the biggest beneficiary, a repetition of Delhi model in the other states too.

By Sidharth Mishra

With MCD gone, what remains in the name of Delhi government is a maimed and moth-eaten structure. In fact the unbundling of the MCD in 2012 was a major move forward in delegation of power to the local government including the responsibility to fund and finance the civic services.

With MCDs starved for funds by the state government, largely for political reasons, the Arvind Kejriwal government in a way lost the moral authority to oppose Centre’s move to reunify the bodies. The Centre presumably made the move to ‘save’ the civic bodies going bankrupt and civic services in the national Capital coming to standstill.