On account of matters that are bewildering, the Aam Aadmi Party’s stunning electoral victory in Delhi last February, which above all flummoxed the BJP that was seeking to ride on the Narendra Modi wave, has not translated into commensurate gains for the people of Delhi. Current developments can only further distract from the object of providing the national capital with an effective government. AAP’s internal misfortunes piled up to begin with, causing the expulsion of some of the leading lights of the so-called anti-corruption movement that had catapulted the new party to power under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal, whose second coming as chief minister raised hopes that seem nowhere being realised.
The self-generated stasis that has followed in running the administration has permitted the BJP, from its high perch at the Centre, to play politics to make life difficult for the AAP and its administration, a job made easier with Mr Kejriwal and his lieutenants trying to raise the pitch on Centre-state relations in a Union Territory — a subject that doesn’t quite impact the woman on the street. The Congress, which was a distant third in the election, has also not lost an opportunity to seek to regain its stride through protest actions.
As a result, the AAP now gives the impression of being an entity which is thrashing about for sheer survival in spite of having such strong numbers in the state Assembly. Bizarre things have begun to happen in the past two days. The AAP government’s Anti-Corruption Branch proceeded to re-open the so-called “CNG fitness scam” in respect of which the panel of Justice Mukul Mudgal had held in 2013 that the then state government was not guilty of corruption but of ineptitude.
On the heels of this, the Delhi police, controlled by the Union home ministry and not the UT government, arrested the city’s law minister following allegations that his law degree was fake when the matter was being heard in the high court. Lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung ordered the ACB to be headed by a particular senior officer of the Delhi police in whom the AAP regime has little trust. The state government lost no time in declaring that the post to which this officer was appointed simply did not exist. Delhi’s home secretary who had signed the appointment order has been sacked by the Kejriwal government.
This story of spite and worse can perhaps only end if the Supreme Court steps in to clarify the constitutional position on Centre-state relations as applicable to Delhi sooner than the three-month time-frame. It should cause no surprise if events push Delhi to its third polls in two years.
