Caught between a rock and a hard place

Caught between a rock and a hard place

This is exactly the predicament that the Congress party faces in Delhi. It cannot back Chief Minister Mr. Kejriwal since he was the original mover of the Lokpal protest that rocked the Congress boat; neither can it back the Bharatiya Janata Party since they are their principal opponents going into an election year.

However given the above choices, what the Congress strongmen in the states are doing is putting the party two steps back in its forward march to a united opposition against the ruling party in 2019. The Delhi Unit chief Mr. Ajay Maken says that the Congress can never support the AAP since it was Kejriwal along with moralistically political evangelist Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, RSS and other opponents who started the tirade against congress in the first place.

They point out that Kejriwal did not hesitate to take the support of the RSS during those times, an organization and its political wing that he is fighting against now having pitched tent in the lieutenant Governor’s office premises. Similarly the BJP is a principal opponent of the entire opposition that its hopes to uproot in the forthcoming elections with the support of the united opposition in the country.

Therein lays the problems of the congressmen. They have such egoistically bloated and hardened regional leaders that they either uproot the ambitions of their own party men as in Kerala, or stupidly move against the very opposition that they are trying to unite against the ruling dispensation.

On the other hand Mr. Kejriwal is a cunning fox and knows when to strike. When he started off around three and a half years ago he was a confrontationist confronting the central government and blaming them for everything that was wrong with administration in Delhi. His rant for full statehood was choreographed to suit his image of an agitationist. Then the last couple of years he embarked on a reformist agenda knowing full well that the opposition would ask uneasy questions of him on governance during election time.

Now that the elections are nearing he is playing a very smart game by going into his shell and agitating for the people of Delhi. This will help him hog the limelight and project him as a leader who doesn’t care for the high and mighty and only cares about the ordinary citizen (the aam admi). It will also give him an alibi for the promises that remained unfulfilled in the election manifesto.

By sitting-in at the Lieutenant General’s office he has surprised the wiliest foxes in the ruling party and projected the Lieutenant Governor and the Centre as cohorts in arms and cut off the Congress party from the debate by forcing them to choose between a rock and a hard place. The Congress very foolishly has chosen to take a stand against him without being seeing as assisting the centre. Thus they are trying to project Mr. Kejriwal being unworthy of support given his past explained above even though they are against the central dispensation.

Honestly this is not carrying much weight and they are actually cutting a very sorry figure. The BJP on the other hand have been forced to show their hand and have been ‘caught with their pants down’ openly agitating on the side of the Lieutenant Governor and the IAS officers who are not cooperating and staying away from meetings being called by the ministers. They have gone as far enough to occupy the Chief Ministers office for a counter protest. By doing this they have openly taken sides and walked into the trap set up by Mr. Kejriwal. Now they have no pretentions about backing the Lieutenant Governor or the bureaucracy having been forced into the open by this clever move from the Aam Admi Camp.

The swords have been drawn between the AAP and the BJP while the Congress party in Delhi seems to be brandishing its sword at an imaginary enemy cutting anyone who comes within range of its sword. In this game of thrones what is interesting is the way Mr. Kejriwal has outwitted the brazen BJP and its national icon Mr. Narendra Modi and his supposedly able lieutenant Mr. Amit Shah as also their parent organization the RSS.

If there is one who can take on the current ruling establishment it is Mr. Kejriwal. He can turn out to be a national icon if only he was to turn a statesman. But that’s the difference between an agitationist and a statesman. An agitationist sees the immediate gain and the immediate cause never stooping, while a statesman looks at the larger picture and the long term gains stooping to conquer. 

The Congress leaders in Delhi unit foolishly tried to take a nonexistent third path sadly for which there are not many takers They should have backed the Aam Admi Party to show opposition solidarity thereby establishing what their national President has been advocating going to the extent of letting the regional parties take the lead in their respective regions while themselves taking a haircut.

News that is making the rounds is that the Congress is willing to reduce its share of seats for contesting the next Lok Sabha elections to around 45% of the total seats. Against this background it would have been prudent to back the opposition even while waiting their turn or piggy ride on the oppositions strengths to achieve their near term targets.

I am looking forward to the results of this latest contest. Even as I write this piece the supporters of AAP are marching to the Prime Minister’s residence and the Police are trying to prevent them by locking down metro stations and scuttling all means of transportation. The next few weeks will show who blinks first, my take is it has to be the centre because it seems like a checkmate on the political chess board.

Readers will of course have more time to arrive at your own takes.

17^th June 2018