A Nameless Indian Speaks:
It always surprises me, rather pains me, to see why politicians take Indian people for granted. Politicians feel the voters are fools and will not be able to see through their ulterior motives. In the recently concluded general election, the voters across the country gave a thumpi ng majority to the BJP and the NDA – an unprecedented result by any non-Congress party since Independence.
By questioning the election result, parties are repeating the same mistake and are doing more harm to themselves than the voters, as by doing so they are questioning the intellect of millions of Indians who had also (as for BJP in 2014 election) exercised their right to vote to bring other parties to power previously.
While the Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh tried to defend the miserable decline of the party saying that the people failed to understand the ‘good work done by the party in a decade’, the Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal in a press conference on Wednesday in New Delhi said that the “people misinterpreted them and their statements”.
By saying this, Kejriwal has begun his melodrama, playing to the gallery, acting as a victim and again displaying shamelessly his insatiable lust for power. What Kejriwal has failed to understand is that it was the same aam aadmi—the common man of Delhi that voted him to power during the Assembly election just a few months ago, and later rejected all his candidates across India in the Lok Sabha polls, as they felt in the urgency to become the prime minister of the country he showed disrespect towards the electorate.
It was the same Kejriwal, who had openly said, “Desh ke liye aisi kai Mukhyamantri ki kursi qurbaan” (For the nation, many such posts of chief minister can be sacrificed). But the moment he realised that he would get reduced to a ‘non-entity’ after the rout AAP faced in the Lok Sabha election, he immediately did a somersault and blatantly said, “Wherever we went, people hailed us by saying how honest we were and our only mistake was exiting the Delhi government. Now, people want us back, and considering voters concern we want re-election in Delhi”.
Dear Mr Kejriwal, do you even realise the amount of money spent in the last Assembly election? It was not funded by any foreign agency as is the case with NGOs. It was the taxpayers’ hard-earned money and now you again want the Election Commission to spend people’s money to re-play the same exercise. Do you have any regard for the aam aadmi, on whose name you take oath every day? It seems you don’t, simply because you didn’t even bother to honour the promise you made in the name of your children. After winning the second position in Delhi, you openly said on TV channels, “Bachhon ki kasam, na BJP se gathbandhan karenge aur na Congress se gathbandhan karenge” (In the name of my children, I promise that we would never tie-up with the Congress or the BJP to form government).
But, your goal was to become the CM, so in the most shameless manner like other political party leaders, you took the support of the Congress and became the CM. As the Lok Sabha elections gradually neared, you decided to quit Delhi on the pretext of Lok Pal issue and attacked Narendra Modi, the PM candidate of the BJP, by hurling abuses at him to gain public sympathy during rallies.
Like many over-ambitious leaders in the history, you too thought that if people could vote you to power by dismantling the 15-year Congress rule in Delhi, then they would vote for you as the PM of India as well. Hope you are aware of your party’s dismal performance in this Lok Sabha election – out of your 443 candidates, deposits of 412 have been forfeited. Some of your best faces like Yogendra Yadav, Kumar Vishwas, Shazia Ilmi, V Balakrishnan, Meera Sanyal, Medha Patkar, Ashutosh, etc. performed even worse than expected in their respective constituencies.
How long do you want to fool people like the Congress did? Isn’t it why the people often blame you to be the B-team of Congress? You are so pompous, egotistical and narcissist that in every speech of yours, you categorically mention how honest you and your colleagues are. Mr Modi may not be liked by a big section of minorities and pseudo-intellectuals, but did he ever play his own trumpet of honesty? He could have done it, at least after winning an over-whelming majority, but he didn’t.
Forget middle-class and youth voters, whom you claim to be your biggest strength and vote bank, even the economically poor voters and auto-wallahs of Delhi, who selflessly campaigned for you, do not want AAP back in power.
Your one and only aim is to be in power by hook or crook. You claim Delhi voters want you back. Even if we believe it to be true hypothetically for a second, do you have any explanation as to why AAP lost all the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, including your ‘stalwart’ MLA candidate Rakhi Birla, whom you had fielded with confidence?
Varanasi defeat has also not taught you a lesson. And, now comes your latest political stunt. You want to prove yourself a ‘victim’, ‘a martyr’ by not applying for a bail against the defamation case filed by Nitin Gadkari. You chose to be behind the prison bars, so that you can gain political mileage in the next Delhi polls. You’re again resorting to banal and cheap tricks, Mr Kejriwal. How long will you continue to do so?
We are no one to give you advice, because we are the nameless, faceless, common Indians, who could not even approach you after you got elected and toppled Mrs Sheila Dikshit. But, there is a word of caution from us: Don’t ever challenge the power of aam aadmi and test their patience. Our only weapon is our mandate, and you’ve faced the brunt recently.
Don’t use the strategy of some of the cheap political leaders of recent times, who lost the election: ‘If you want to save yourself from your misdeeds, do not put the blame on the common man. If we can put you to power by exercising our voting right, we can also drag you out of power. Enough is enough, Mr Kejriwal – you have thoroughly been exposed. You may find some supporters within the media, intellectual circuit and NGO activists, but they can’t garner votes for you to be the CM or the PM. Having followers on social media is different from getting real-time votes.
You should learn the lesson of generosity from Mr Modi, who has repeatedly been dubbed as ‘arrogant, self-centric, dictatorial, murderer, fascist etc.’ by the opponents and the so-called pseudo-secular intellectuals. The recent victory speech by Mr Modi deflated their assertions when he said, “The nation doesn’t belong to Modi or BJP. It belongs to the people.”
(The opinion expressed in this column is solely that of the writer – Nameless Indian)
