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. 

By Sidharth Mishra

Around 2011-12, when the Manmohan Singh government was facing a plethora of corruption charges, largely on the account of allocation of 2G spectrum and hosting of Commonwealth Games, then Congress spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi had famously said, “Congress had said earlier also that all such cases should be investigated and enquired properly and law will take its own course.”

Among the cheer-leaders of the anti-corruption campaign were a few social sector activists namely Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia. This campaign propelled them to the seat of power in the national Capital, unseating a very successful and fairly clean chief minister Sheila Dikshit. While Dikshit is credited with building infrastructure which is sustaining the national Capital today, the charges against her in the alleged Commonwealth Games scam came a cropper.

It’s just been a decade and now the duo of Kejriwal-Sisodia are themselves being investigated for corruption. One of the senior ministers from their team, Satyender Jain has been languishing behind bars for some time now in a money laundering case. Unlike the Congress in 2011-12, the Aam Aadmi Party has not shown the political finesse of saying, “law will take its own course.”

By Sidharth Mishra

While we are still trying to figure what put legislative functioning of Arvind Kejriwal government into abeyance in Delhi for the past four years, a flurry of attacks by them have further muddied the water. Last we learnt that Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia stonewalled tabling of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report in the house for four consecutive years.

Now that the report is in the public domain, one learns what made Kejriwal government hold back the reports. The CAG reports pertaining to the years 2017-18 to 2020-21 point to several irregularities of serious nature in the accounts and finance across various departments of Delhi government.

A cursory look at the report would show that every PSU under Delhi government was incurring loss, which is in direct contrast to government's claims that under them Delhi was financially vibrant. As per the report, Delhi government power companies losses stood at Rs 2,561 crore. The Delhi Transport Corporation incurred a loss of Rs 29,143 crore while the loss for Delhi Jal Board was Rs 27,660 crore, the CAG papers indicate.

By Sidharth Mishra

The drive from the western to the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh through the monsoon rains is replete with heart-warming images. First and foremost, the 1000-kilometre-long journey from Ghaziabad to Ghazipur can now be covered in just about 10 hours, thanks to the three expressways – Yamuna Expressway, Taj Expressway and the Purvanchal Expressway. While the huge green expanses of paddy plantations are soothing to the eyes, the images of the young men and in some places young women running on the service lanes of the expressways add to curiosity. Both the eastern and the western fringe of Uttar Pradesh and areas of the neighbouring states are composed of the districts that are known for sending recruits to the Indian armed forces.

These areas while have rich agriculture belts, its economy is also boosted by the cash sent home by the soldiers deployed with the military and para-military forces. Buxar, the westernmost town of Bihar, across the Ganges from Ghazipur, today boasts of several senior secondary schools affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

The buses from these schools ferret out in the morning to the interiors on the metalled rural roads built under Pradhan Mantri Rural Roads scheme, ferrying children, mostly of the soldier parents. These schools maintain faculty and hygiene standards equal to any big city school. They also match in the fee charged from the students.

By Sidharth Mishra

Celebrated British poet TS Eliot ends his 1925 poem 'Hollow Men' with the lines ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.’ A party which came to power in Delhi riding a popularity wave on the account of its claimed fight against corruption, has just signed a confession statement on being corrupt.

For the first time in post-independence history we have an instance of a Minister criticising a proposal which he himself piloted in the cabinet. After the Delhi cabinet approved the abandoning of Excise Policy 2021-22,  Sisodia was quoted as saying, “They (BJP) are threatening shopkeepers, officers with ED and CBI, they want legal liquor shops to be closed in Delhi and earn money from illegal shops. We've decided to stop the new liquor policy and ordered to open govt liquor shops.”

That the city's Finance Minister was out of his wits on the issue was evident in statement issued on the same day, which said, “We brought a new liquor policy to stop corruption. Before that government used to get around Rs 6,000 Cr revenue from 850 liquor shops. But, after the new policy, our govt would have got more than Rs 9,000 Cr with the same number of shops.”

Can a government sound so helpless, can Ministers from a government which sat on a dharna at Raj Niwas led by their chief minister Arvind Kejriwal would act so meek on the 'threats' held out by the Delhi BJP leaders? The point to be noted is that cabinet decision to abandon Excise Policy 2021-22 came following a police investigation into policy and a faceoff with the Lt Governor who has sought a CBI probe in the matter, based on a report by the Chief Secretary.

By Sidharth Mishra

That the Delhi Government did not table the reports on its functioning by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in the state assembly for four years in a row shows how legislative functioning has hit a bottomless pit in the national Capital. That the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government, known for its care a damn attitude towards legislative responsibilities, did not table the report is not surprising. What worries is that the opposition benches, constituting of the BJP MLAs, also did not care to demand its tabling. The surprises don’t end there. There is an assembly secretariat, headed by the Speaker, custodian of legislative powers and responsibilities, too went along the government in their devious act to subvert the processes which makes assembly proceedings meaningful. And lastly the role of the former Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal in overlooking this act of subversion of democratic functioning for four continuous years. According to recent newspaper reports, it took four letters from the present L-G Vinai Kumar Saxena’s office for the government to table the 10 reports panning over four years finally in the monsoon session of the Delhi Assembly on July 5 this year.

The news reports mentioned that the CAG reports of the year 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, detailing ‘State Finances Audit Report’, ‘Revenue Economic, Social & General Sectors and PSUs’, ‘Social General & Economic Sectors’, ‘Finance Accounts of GNCTD’ and ‘Appropriation Accounts of GNCTD’, were pending with Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia, since as long as when they were submitted by CAG. What does this indicate, a deliberate attempt to paper over the cracks in governance.