Kejriwal’s first year a mixed bag
By Kalyani Shankar
Last February, the threeyear-old Aam Aadmi Party with almost no experience came to power with an overwhelming majority. A year later, its report card shows that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has not been able to meet the huge expectations. He has four more years to prove his credentials. He himself has said that it would not be bad if his government fulfill about half the campaign promises in five years. However, Kejriwal has been surrounded by controversies, bickering and infighting in the party, personal health problems, and a visibly public spat with the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and the Centre. This is unfortunate given that his massive electoral mandate was for governance and not for drama and confrontation. While the year had not gone off very well, Kejriwal has ended his one year in office with kudos after his novel experiment of odd/ even dates for four-wheelers to check pollution. The middle class, which was losing faith in his performance has given him support in spite of widespread skepticism. Added to that was the support from the Chief Justice of India. During the year, Kejriwal has protected his vote bank in the poorer classes by announcing timebound regularisation of all unauthorised colonies promising that slum dwellers would get permanent housing facility. He has also stopped the demolition drive. As for the electoral promises the AAP government has delivered its big-ticket election promises like providing cheaper power and water to the Delhiites. From March last, every household gets 20,000 litres of water at no cost every month; families who use less than 400 units of power per month gets a 50 per cent discount on their bills, the others will pay full rate for electricity. The subsidy would cost the government about Rs 1,400 crores and the water about Rs 250 crores. Secondly, the Delhi Assembly has passed a watered down Jan Lokpal bill on December 3. After his 49-day stint in his earlier term in 2012-13, Kejriwal resigned as chief minister on this issue. He has re-launched the anticorruption help line 1031. Thirdly, he has planned to make free Wi-Fi functional which was among the prominent pre-poll promises made by the AAP. Fourthly, to clean up the education system, the chief minister has scrapped the management quota in nursery admissions in private schools. The AAP government has also passed a bunch of bills to bring major reforms in education system of Delhi. The Delhi School Education (Amendment) Bill 2015 and The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Delhi Amendment) Bill are among the ones passed. However, the controversies are also dogging him and his party. First of all, Kejriwal is yet to move to governance mode as he has been concentrating on other issues. But as chief minister, he no longer has the luxury to play street politics. He has been fighting with L-G Najeeb Jung on appointments and transfers bringing friction in the Centre-State relations. The second and more direct confrontation with the Union government is about the police. As part of his agenda, Kejriwal wants the police and land powers, which are now under the Centre to be transferred to the Delhi government. After the ghastly incident of three rapes within a week in October, Kejriwal has reiterated his demand for full authority over the police department. Thirdly, when he went after the media, the Supreme Court came to the rescue and stayed the 6 May circular of the Delhi government which would have initiated defamation proceedings against media for publishing or broadcasting news that damage the reputation of the chief minister, the council of ministers and the government. This showed intolerance. Fourthly, Kejriwal’s attack on the bureaucracy started with the appointment of power secretary Shakuntala Chamlin as the acting chief secretary, which turned into a fullscale war between him and the L-G, and also demoralised the officials who now want to be transferred out. Fifthly, Kejriwal took on the Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on the DDCA controversy accusing him of presiding over alleged financial irregularities and ordered a probe. Najeeb Jung stepped in and declared that the probe was illegal and unconstitutional. Sixthly, he has been building a personality cult and got rid of senior leaders like Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan for voicing dissent. The Chief Minister faced embarrassment when some of his party leaders including Jitender Singh Tomar and Surender Singh were found in a legal tangle involving fake degree scandals. In September, Kejriwal sacked his environment and food minister Asim Ahmed Khan for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs. 6 lakh from a builder. He distanced himself from his former law minister Somnath Bharti as an “embarrassment” to his party. The other controversial members include Pankaj Pushkar and Manoj Kumar. Seventhly, Kejriwal came in for criticism when Gajendra Singh, a farmer committed suicide in a public meeting addressed by Kejriwal. But the chief minister went on with his meeting which came in for criticism. Eighthly, the AAP government approved the proposal for a 400 per cent hike in salary and allowances of MLAs, which also became a controversy. He got bad publicity for allocating Rs 526 crores for ads. Despite all these Kejriwal has moved on with his ambitious plans of concentrating on Punjab Assembly polls in 2017. At another level, he is also hobnobbing with other chief ministers like Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee and even organised a meeting for a federal front. His sights are still set on occupying the Race Course Road. In the coming year, the chief minister has to change his style of functioning and concentrate more on governance than drama and street politics. (IPA Service)