oppn parties Kejriwal's Mantra: Dharnas for Me, Not for Aam Aadmi

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  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
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  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
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  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
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  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
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Kejriwal's Mantra: Dharnas for Me, Not for Aam Aadmi

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2016-08-06 11:19:15

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
Arvind Kejriwal started his political career deceptively. He began in the guise of a civil activist and never let anyone be privy to his burning ambition. He used Anna Hazare and the movement against corruption as his launch pad and survived on Gandhian principles of dharnas. His whole political philosophy is based on anarchy and disruptions. As chief minister of Delhi, he had sat on a dharna outside Rail Bhawan in Delhi. Now he has slapped Section 144 outside his residence and banned dharnas or any type of congregation for a period of 30 days, ostensibly to prevent “serious law and order” problems. But in reality he is denying the people of Delhi the very rights of protest that he so vehemently asked of both UPA and NDA governments.

A megalomaniac like Kejriwal subscribes to only one line of thinking – he, and only he, is right in all matters. No one has the right to question his decisions. No one has the right to ask him unpleasant questions. No one has the right to protests against his decisions. He does not even have inner-party democracy and does not listen to alternative voices from his own party men so it is too much to expect him to listen to the aam aadmi whose cause he claims to champion. In the process, he presides over a rag-tag party that includes the likes of all shady characters found in every other political party in India and his claim about AAP being different is nothing but a sham.

Kejriwal has a history of being confrontationist. He has been engaged in a running feud with the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi over the rights of the chief minister. He refuses to believe that given Delhi’s special status as National Capital Region (NCR) and division of power between the territory and the Centre, till it gets full statehood, the chief minister has limited powers. He has been explained the law by the Delhi High Court recently, but it is not in his nature to listen to the judiciary too. Kejriwal yearns for absolute power, but that is one thing he is not going to get in a country like India.