By Sidharth Mishra

The report says 18% of candidates belonging to the Aam Aadmi Party for the upcoming MCD elections face criminal cases, followed by the BJP and Congress. On the other hand, the BJP has topped the list of ‘crorepati’ candidates, followed by AAP and Congress.

It must have been like swallowing bitter pill for the ADR to come out with this report drawing on the ‘criminal’ character of the AAP. Like several non-governmental organizations (NGOs), ADR too were part of the social sector conglomerate which had supported the ‘India Against Corruption’ campaign of Anna Hazare in 2011, which was spearheaded by Arvind Kejriwal, then a social activist.

By Sidharth Mishra

The Gujarat assembly election are now round the corner. The state faces a triangular fight, or at least the media says so. The media spoke similarly very high about the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) when the assembly elections were held in Uttarakhand and in Goa. They ended up giving miserable performance in the two states.

AAP’s performance was initially tipped to be very good in Himachal Pradesh too. But despite a cheering media, the party itself decided to give up. AAP insiders say that with considerably weakened financial sinews, following arrest of Minister Satyender Jain in money laundering scam, it was not possible for Arvind Kejriwal to fight BJP on two fronts, thus he decided to ‘recall forces’ from Himachal for the bigger battle in Gujarat.

The big battle, as Kejriwal sees it, is his best opportunity to emerge as a challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had made a similar attempt early in his career taking on Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi. This was at the peak of his anti-corruption movement and he managed to poll 2.09 lakh votes against Modi’s 5.81 lakh.

By Sidharth Mishra

Delhi has often been derided for its unique governance structure, which has three distinct levels. It’s been called multiplicity of authority, which people have claimed to be the bane for the governance of the national Capital.

Now let’s put it this way, that no government law or policy is prima facie maliciously intended. Deficiencies emerge in its implementation. And these deficiencies may not necessarily be on the account law being inherently bad but it’s largely due to the ill intent of the people implementing it.

We have the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls scheduled to be held in a fortnight’s time. Some political party would win the polls and the other would lose but governance in Delhi would continue to remain defeated. There is a reason for this thought of pessimism.

By Sidharth Mishra

In an ostensible mention about the ‘clean politics’ agenda of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mentioned at a public rally that those who call themselves incorrigibly honest (kattar imandar) can be seen raising hands together with those convicted of corruption. He was referring to the photograph of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal with Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Yadav has been convicted of corruption in the infamous fodder scam cases of Bihar and thus made illegible for contesting elections. Arvind Kejriwal, however, in a way is doing one better on Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had decided to quit when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) came to arrest him. Unlike Yadav, Kejriwal has allowed his cabinet colleague Satyender Jain to continue in office despite being arrested as far back as May 31 this year in a much graver case of money laundering.

By Sidharth Mishra

As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) dominate political diatribe in the run-up to the polls of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), Congress suddenly entered the news columns for different reasons. Nomination of former Union Minister Jagdish Tytler on the party’s poll committee has got the Congress the much missed headlines.

Tytler’s nomination matters, and no wonder the party is ready to take the risk. With its vote share down to less than five percent in the last assembly polls, it doesn’t lose anything more in the name of four-time Lok Sabha member. On the other hand bringing the veteran out from forced hibernation may (or may not) help revive the dormant party organisation.

Product of the Youth Congress of Sanjay Gandhi’s generation, Tytler rubbed shoulders and remained friends with Congress stalwarts like Kamal Nath and made a steady progress on the political ladder. He had a reasonably successful tenure as Minister in PV Narasimha Rao Cabinet between 1991and 1996.

In Delhi’s politics he was seen as rival to Congress’ long time strongman Har Kishan Lal Bhagat, who enjoyed the epithet of ‘uncrowned king of Delhi’. Tytler on the other hand formed the opposite axis within Congress through 1980s and 1990s, holding his own.

By Sidharth Mishra

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal with party colleague and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann has finally said that heavy pollution in Delhi is due to stubble burning in Punjab. They went onto add that the situation became grim as their government in Punjab was just six months old and that they needed time to overcome the challenge.

\That Mr Kejriwal had ever cared he could have learnt from the columns of this newspaper as far back as July this year about the emerging situation. This year, as had been promised by Kejriwal last year, the stubble decomposition capsules developed at Pusa Institute in Delhi was to wonders.

It works like this that four Pusa capsules have to be dissolved in water to make a 25-litre solution, which is enough to spray on one hectare of land. After the solution is sprayed, it takes about 20 to 25 days for the crop remnants to decompose. The crisis now reveals that while Punjab used the capsules in just a few thousand acres, the neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have brought down the incidents of stubble burning by using this solution in the lakhs of acres. 

By Sidharth Mishra

In VK Saxena, the new Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal has bumped into the most serious challenge of his remarkable political journey till now. The master manipulator of public discourse, Kejriwal’s politics revolves around projecting himself as the righteous underdog. This well-crafted image honed through deft media management and spending 1000s of crores of rupees in advertising, has taken a severe hit ever since Saxena took over as LG, five months back.

Saxena, a self-proclaimed activist like Kejriwal himself, has given the latter a run for his money on his own pitch. Saxena’s activism, sans rhetoric has started resulting in concrete and visible work on the ground for all to see. That he also chooses to be on the streets and communicates with the people and the Media proactively has put the ever aggressive Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on the back foot, with little to attack Saxena with. This result oriented and time bound approach of Saxena to get things done is in stark contrast to the “all sound no fury” style of the Delhi CM.

By Sidharth Mishra

Diwali is here and so is the worsening Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national Capital region. While the promise of no paddy stubble burning in the fields of Punjab has come a cropper, the saving grace has been Supreme Court’s tough stand on not allowing sale of fire crackers in the national Capital.

The Delhi government, under pressure from the Supreme Court-appointed Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and the measures initiated by it, has banned the storage, sale and use of firecrackers in Delhi with stringent punishment for those violating the ban. However, this has been sought to be made into a political issue by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) especially with an eye on the upcoming Municipal Corporation polls.

The BJP wants the ban to go and has blamed the AAP government for deliberately banning firecrackers on a ‘Hindu festival’ that is Diwali. They attacked AAP for practicing double standards citing videos of AAP workers burning fire crackers in the party celebrations. The BJP has asked how is it that the AAP workers have the ‘license’ to burn firecrackers without the threat of any stringent punishment.