'Anarchist' Kejriwal sleeps on the road, AAP activists ready for 10-day stir
New Delhi: Despite criticism, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that the protest will continue and will be indefinite untill his demands are met. Refusing to relent to the police asking him to shift the dharna from Rail Bhavan to Jantar Mantar, he said he won't budge till he ensures security to people.
On the second day of the protest, four Metro stations remained shut. Not relenting to pressure, Kejriwal blamed home minister Sushilkumar Shinde for inconveniencing the public by not cooperating with him. Shinde on Monday had said that the Delhi police would be under the control of MHA.
Calling dharna by a CM as unconventional politics, he said it will be a new league of politics in India.
In an unprecedented move, Arvind Kejriwal and six of his Cabinet colleagues, party MLAs and supporters sat on dharna on Monday outside Rail Bhavan here, close to Parliament House, demanding action against some police officials while asking the honest among them to join his agitation to free the nation from corruption.
Unfazed by criticism that he was unleashing anarchy on the streets of the nation’s capital, Kejriwal said: “I am an anarchist.” He said that he had come prepared for a 10-day protest, which could be prolonged further.
Kejriwal also said, when it was pointed out that his agitation could hamper preparations for Republic Day just six days away, that there was no point in celebrating when women were getting raped in the city. “If our dharna is hampering preparations for the Republic Day parade, the Centre is responsible for that.”
Kejriwal, who wanted to hold the dharna outside the home ministry’s North Block office, was stopped by the police near Rail Bhavan.
He was not allowed to move out of his car for at least 40 minutes. Kejriwal was finally allowed to come out of his WagonR at 12.05 pm after he assured the police that he only wanted to make a brief speech.
Late on Monday, the CM went to sleep by the roadside at the dharna site. Starting a confrontation with the Centre, Kejriwal accused the Delhi police of “taking bribes and making money” while compromising on the safety of women.
In an impromptu address to supporters, he said: “Some people say that I am an anarchist. I am spreading disorder. I agree that I am an anarchist. Today, I will create anarchy for (home minister) Sushilkumar Shinde.”
Next: Is Kejriwal hoping to gain from chaos?
Is Kejriwal hoping to gain from chaos?
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has many firsts to his credit but Monday’s protest in the high-security area of Delhi is the most controversial one since he took over the post.
The protest, that saw four Metro stations closed down, traffic jams and colossal chaos that inconvenienced lakhs of people, from office workers to ordinary commuters, was ostensibly to get Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde to suspend the policemen involved in a fracas with the overzealous law minister from the Aam Aadmi Party, Somnath Bharti, on Wednesday night when Ugandan women were subjected to humiliating treatment by AAP members.
Shinde correctly said that suspension could follow only as the consequence of an inquiry into the incident.
But Kejriwal and six of his ministers insisted on going to the home ministry without an appointment to demand the suspension when the police stopped them at Rail Bhavan, as Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code was in force in the area, and asked them to go to Jantar Mantar.
Kejriwal’s point is that while he is responsible for law and order, the police is not under him and that rampant drug-peddling and prostitution in New Delhi makes the city unsafe, particularly for women.
Whilst he is right on a point of principle, the immediate trigger for this dharna, which has been brewing for a few days, seems to be slipping on weak grounds. Kejriwal claimed they had got a letter from the Ugandan high commission regarding a prostitution racket into which one of their citizens was forced.
The external affairs ministry has denied the existence of any such letter and neither Kejriwal nor Bharti have yet shown this letter to the public. Kejriwal has been dubbed an “anarchist” and proudly agrees that he is one.
After all, some say Mahatma Gandhi too was a philosophical anarchist. Gandhi said the state is the military, police, prisons, courts, tax collectors and bureaucrats. Mahatma Gandhi saw the state as concentrated violence.
Kejriwal accused the home ministry of creating anarchy in people’s homes with inflation, rapes, etc. But Kejriwal should remember that only honesty and truth give one the moral authority for dharnas.
If the Ugandan letter turns out to be pure fiction, then Kejriwal’s dharna is a mockery. It gives firepower to his enemies and critics, who say he is engaging in theatrics so that the Congress withdraws support and he can go to the Lok Sabha polls with this huge chip on his shoulders for having taken up the cause of the aam aadmi and women.
The Congress is too shrewd to oblige, and will instead possibly give him a long rope. The coming days will show whether Kejriwal hangs himself politically.
