No doubt green with envy over PM Modi’s friendly chat with Akshay Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal decided to increase his own celebrity status by doing an interview with Kunal Kamra. While the PM’s interaction was a relaxed conversation, so as to enable the people to know more about the man behind the face, Kejriwal’s stunt was 37 minutes of complaining about PM Modi and putting various allegations on his government, so as to spread hatred.
The interview began with Arvind Kejriwal clearing the air for all by declaring that this election is not a fight to form the government or even for the Prime Ministerial post, but instead, the sole aim of all the political parties, whether in alliance or not, is to remove PM Modi and Amit Shah from power. In order to do this, it really doesn’t matter which party from what ideology comes to power at the centre. Essentially, all the parties are aiming to cut BJP’s votes; which is a strange admittance by the opposition, as it tends to undermine its own ability.
With Arvind Kejriwal declaring that the opposition has resorted to simply playing the role of “vote cutters”, he stated that the current government including the Prime Minister of the country is a “tumor”. Shockingly, he went on to explain that the immediate need for the country is to get rid of the ‘tumor’ and after the ‘tumor’ is dealt with, it can be decided what to do with the country. This is quite a slanderous comment, undermining not only the current government of the country but also the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the elected head of the country, who commands utmost respect; and by making this statement, Arvind Kejriwal has questioned the ability of the majority of Indian voters who voted for him and has also questioned the sovereignty of the Prime Minister. Kunal Kamra had whole heartily agreed with the ‘tumor’ comparison by stating, “Literally anyone can be the Prime Minister as long as it’s not Modi”. In a democratic country, the people have the power to keep a check on the government, but these statements are downright derogatory. A Prime Minister is an international representative of the country and if the country’s own people do not respect their leader, why will other nations pay any heed to him?
After the belittling comparison with ‘tumors’, the conversation progressed on to the topic of mob lynching. Here, without much ado, Arvind Kejriwal decided that it is due to BJP that such incidents are happening and the government is directly responsible for such attacks. Instead of focusing on the issue or enumerating the measures AAP would take if elected, Kejriwal chose to indulge in the blame game and malign BJP’s reputation. However, strangely enough, in an effort to demonstrate BJP’s role in the mob lynching, Kunal Kamra has used a video filmed from 2013, during the UPA led regime. Moreover, he has used a BJP MLA’s speech in the video as a voice over, falsely attributing the video to him (the original video from 6 years ago).
In the entire propaganda filled interview, this has been the most imbecile move. It is quite laughable that Kunal Kamra has contradicted himself. This successfully establishes that mob lynching was very much an issue in India even during the UPA regime and hence the BJP government has no role to play in it.
Keen on spreading more hatred, Arvind Kejriwal stated that PM Modi hates Muslims and due to this the Hindus in the country believe that he loves them, but that’s not the case; he just hates the Muslims. Looking at the ground reality, it is PM Modi who has introduced legislation for the upliftment of the Muslim women. The party had introduced a bill to criminalize the triple talaq practice which is highly derogatory and insensitive the women. Keeping solely the Muslim women’s interests and empowerment in mind, PM Modi had attempted to do this, which was blocked by all the opposition parties.
Thereafter he sought to put words in PM Modi’s mouth. PM Modi had stated that he had the support of 40 sitting MLA’s in the West Bengal government who will help him in forming the government. Arvind Kejriwal however believed this meant that PM Modi had bought the MLAs whereas no one had said anything even remotely similar to this. Perhaps Kejriwal himself believes that a leader cannot garner the support of other leaders without paying them and hence got confused.
Out of topics to blame PM Modi on, Kejriwal stated that the opposition questioning the working of independent institutions such as the CAG, Election Commission and the judiciary is somehow PM Modi’s fault.
Arvind Kejriwal obviously doesn’t have his facts right and even stated that India’s economy has suffered under BJP; whereas the truth of the matter is that India was in the fragile 5 economies of the world when UPA government handed over the governance to the NDA government. Since then, the economy has grown by leaps and bounds.
Throughout all this, Kunal Kamra, as an interviewer was sitting calmly, listening to all the lies Kejriwal was spewing. Instead of focusing on the facts or grilling Kejriwal for his own shortcomings, the agenda of the interview was to disparage PM Modi. Apart from criticising PM Modi, all Kejriwal did was whine about the need of a full statehood and again, blame BJP for the Delhi’s non-statehood. It is no secret that Kunal Kamra is highly anti-BJP and for this reason, his interview was biased, encouraging and fueling criticism on the current government. Arvind Kejriwal was made an authority on the Modi government and instead of helping the citizens understand the kind of leader he would be and the reforms he would implement if elected, all he was interested was in preaching the people, not to elect PM Modi.