He is angry. He is bitter. He is a fodder for trolls on the internet and he is the biggest troll of them all. He retweets everything that a CM should not. He reviews movie on an alarmingly regular regularity. He attacks businessmen, he attacks filmmakers, and he locks horns with politicians almost every day. He likes trending on social media, he loves storming the mainstream media. He is controversy’s favorite child and has fathered more controversies than any of his contemporaries.
He has a special talent for propaganda. He is the biggest endorser of his home-grown brand. He is the self-propagandist who would put the best PR agencies to shame. More than a year after being elected to the CM chair, he is as livid and rancorous as ever and he is no mood to cast his activist cloak aside.
Arvind Kejriwal is possibly the worst social experiment, worst Chief Minister and I have a feeling, after the completion of his tenure, he might find himself in the not-so-elite list of the worst 5 politicians of all times.
The brand and legend of Arvind Kejriwal thrives on publicity, paid or otherwise. Arvind Kejriwal wears defamation suits on his chest like badges of scrupulousness. Arvind Kejriwal attacks Prime Minister Modi and Finance Minister Jaitley like no CM in a federal setup would. He would create lists of most corrupt politicians and add the name of a Union Minister just like that. He has the audacity to call the PM of the biggest democracy of the world – a coward and a psychopath. Many of these cases resulted in a defamation suit against Arvind Kejriwal, but he was unperturbed. Every time he surrounded himself in a controversy, his social following swelled, donation to his party increased and he got unprecedented coverage in media.
And he has an uncanny talent for paid promotions. Between February and May this year, the Delhi government published print ads worth Rs 14.5 crore, average per diem being Rs 16 lakh. Many of these ads appeared in newspapers published outside Delhi, such as in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The second phase of implementation of the odd-even rule, for example, saw a marketing drive across TV channels and radio stations even when it was proved that there was no scientific evidence to prove that Odd- Even is a successful formula for pollution control.
Arvind Kejriwal has kept no portfolio for himself. The day to day functioning of the Delhi Government is overseen by his close friend and confidante Manish Sisodia. He has awarded himself the role of an eternal vigilante on the lookout of evildoers rather than the boring legislative representative that his role demands him to be. And his vigilantism demands him to pick up fights. On 19 April, while addressing Civil Services Officers in Delhi on Civil Services Day, Kejriwal chided the officers who had instigated a one-day strike on 31 December last year against the removal of two officers by his government. These were his words “For those below 45, you get transferred somewhere or resign. If you are here, you have to follow the agenda of my government.”
When Delhi was fuming at the rape of two minor girls in October last year. Kejriwal quickly trained his guns on the Modi Government. The man who famously blamed Sheila Dixit for every atrocity on womenfolk in Delhi mentioned that policing was the Centre’s job. And he managed to sound aggressive while shifting the blame. In his words “I am no Sheila Dikshit. I won’t let even the PM sleep peacefully.”
He has called Delhi L-G, who happens to be a a self-confessed Nehruvian Socialist – Modi’s agent in Delhi and has refused to respect his authority. A spat that started after LG Jung appointed Shakuntala Gamlin, the Delhi power secretary as acting chief secretary has continued till date. Last heard, Arvind Kejriwal called him Modi’s spy. Even as he was engaged in a verbal duel with L-G Jung, Kejriwal found another target in Delhi (now retired) Police Commissioner BS Bassi. Delhi Police, which come under the purview of the Central Government, had arrested two AAP MLAs and this was enough to trigger Kejriwal’s fury. In his fight against the Police Commissioner, Kejriwal didn’t spare the ordinary cop. In his own words “If a thulla of the Delhi Police asks a roadside vendor for money, a case should not be registered against him, this is not acceptable.”
When the activist Kejriwal stood atop a Podium in the summer of 2011 and appealed to an ocean of followers, frustrated by years of institutionalized corruption, people fell for it. He challenged the convenient arrangements of politics with his derisive oratory and commonplace tone, and people fell in love with him. He won two elections back to back. His rhetoric however, never translated into action. His freebie raj fueled by a horde of subsidies has enthralled the poor but the middle class who scripted his famous victories stand cheated and frustrated with his everyday gimmicks. Arvind Kejriwal has managed to upset a large number of once enthusiastic voters, most of them young and many of them first timers. They are now back to their “Is Desh ka Kuch nahi ho sakta theory”. Arvind Kejriwal is the testimonial to the fact that public movements don’t always result into a good outcome, sometimes they churn out toxic ideologies and rotten people. Arvind Kejriwal was the outcome of one such experiment.
