Kejriwal’s ‘sheen’ wearing thin
31 March 2015 10:23 PM GMT
This is the real face of Arvind Kejriwal. After singing the songs of internal democracy within political parties (including his own), going to town demanding transparency in running a political organisation, extolling the importance of ethics in forming governments and crying for transparent means of funding the political system; we are witnessing the real side of Kejriwal. A side, which has dark and cynical personal views about his own colleagues; a side which does not mind trying to poach the legislators of another party for forming his government and has no qualms in receiving funds for his party from companies, who have no offices at the addresses they give. I do not know how much political ethics Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav, Anand Kumar and Ajit Jha possess; they who stand expelled from the National Executive of Aam Aadmi Party for raising their voice against certain issues related to transparency in their organisation. It is however clear that Arvind Kejriwal does not possess the moral fibre or the ethical compass that is required to clean up the politics of this country. He is another quotidian polluter of this country’s already polluted political system.
The phenomenal rise of Aam Aadmi Party in a very short span of time and its steep downfall in public perception within two months after taking over Delhi is a classic case study for those interested in political analysis. It is horrifying to imagine a situation where individuals like Kejriwal and parties like AAP emerge on the national scene. It is high time that serious political forces emerge to tackle this insurgency of non-serious, inexperienced, unnecessarily experimental and immature individuals and parties.
The degeneration of values in our political system in the last few decades has been very fast. The common man’s anger with the current methods of doing politics has reached to a level, where they now reject time tested political parties in favour of political start-ups and believe their impractical theories of change. The Lok Sabha election of May 2014 and Delhi assembly election of 2015 are examples of this psyche in our electorate. The people of India had rejected Congress in May 2014 and trusted the Bhartiya Janata Party, hoping that Modi will be able to fulfil some of the dreams he sold. In only eight months of Modi’s rule people’s hopeful mindset have changed because of the absence of any meaningful delivery by the BJP-led government at the Centre. Chants of ‘Modi-Modi’ quickly turned to ‘Kejri-Kejri’ in Delhi.
In less than two months time the electorate is realising that the perception they had of AAP was inaccurate and unfounded. A party, which occupied the common voter’s mind space by promising to keep intact the basic values of politics at any cost, is unable to hide its real face any longer. People have lost their enthusiasm for the BJP, which claimed it is a ‘party with a difference’. At the same time, they are getting disillusioned with the ‘alternative politics’ of AAP. The scenario which has emerged in BJP and AAP has clearly shown that they have become personality cults; so much so that the leaders of both these parties do not feel any hesitation in ruthlessly taking control and sidelining all other leaders, who could be a potential threat. Is it not time that the functioning of the party system in India is streamlined by imposing stricter electoral laws?
The story of the Indian political system has now become an endless soap opera where many of the leaders are afflicted by communalism, caste, community and religious biases. Some of them even have links with mafia groups, assorted variety of criminals, fundamentalist organisations and militant groups. On the one end, there are leaders of different political parties, who run their organisations on the basis of their personal likes, dislikes and whims and on the other end, arbitrary changing of party or group loyalty is endemic.
The factional groups in most parties are non-ideological and have neither the vision for the good of the people nor any capability to govern and undertake responsibilities. It is now clear that parties such as AAP lack discipline and have very poor understanding of the maintenance of public ethics in respect of party functioning. The growing tendency of cartelisation in most political parties of our country is bound to harm the very foundation of Indian democracy. Political parties are the primary vehicles that run democracies with probity. If they do not maintain the basic values of governance, then India’s reputation as the largest democracy of the world remains unfounded. It will need herculean efforts from our citizens to make parties accountable, as instruments for good governance.
Political parties should seriously consider adopting the leadership convention system. This will have positive results. First, it would make the leadership selection process more democratic and federal. Second, the nation would introduce a nationally aggregative mechanism in major parties and curb the tendency of regionalisation and fragmentation. This could go a long way in making parties aggregative and thus more functional in a parliamentary federal system of governance.
There is a need to find ways to curb the continued fragmentation of the party system and mushrooming of regional parties in the larger interest of the democracy. For this, the existing requirement of the four percent of the total number of valid votes polled for the recognition of political parties, as contained in Paragraph 6 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, should be increased to ten. Laws could be enacted for mergers of groups or alliances having the same or similar ideologies and programmes to reduce the number of parties. This would eliminate duplication of effort and promote the chances of a clearer electoral verdict.
Can a country like India be left to such politicians who are a bunch of yo-yos? Can we allow our country to fall into a trap where the prime ministership or chief ministership becomes a popularity contest run over few weeks and few months and later the electorate find themselves cheated and conned? Can we allow for a political system where concerns for the basic issues plaguing the common man are fading away and parties spend most of their time and energy in fire-fighting their internal battles rather than in governance? We would be doing injustice to our democratic polity if we fail to address these issues properly and sincerely.
Author is editor and CEO of News Views India
The phenomenal rise of Aam Aadmi Party in a very short span of time and its steep downfall in public perception within two months after taking over Delhi is a classic case study for those interested in political analysis. It is horrifying to imagine a situation where individuals like Kejriwal and parties like AAP emerge on the national scene. It is high time that serious political forces emerge to tackle this insurgency of non-serious, inexperienced, unnecessarily experimental and immature individuals and parties.
The degeneration of values in our political system in the last few decades has been very fast. The common man’s anger with the current methods of doing politics has reached to a level, where they now reject time tested political parties in favour of political start-ups and believe their impractical theories of change. The Lok Sabha election of May 2014 and Delhi assembly election of 2015 are examples of this psyche in our electorate. The people of India had rejected Congress in May 2014 and trusted the Bhartiya Janata Party, hoping that Modi will be able to fulfil some of the dreams he sold. In only eight months of Modi’s rule people’s hopeful mindset have changed because of the absence of any meaningful delivery by the BJP-led government at the Centre. Chants of ‘Modi-Modi’ quickly turned to ‘Kejri-Kejri’ in Delhi.
In less than two months time the electorate is realising that the perception they had of AAP was inaccurate and unfounded. A party, which occupied the common voter’s mind space by promising to keep intact the basic values of politics at any cost, is unable to hide its real face any longer. People have lost their enthusiasm for the BJP, which claimed it is a ‘party with a difference’. At the same time, they are getting disillusioned with the ‘alternative politics’ of AAP. The scenario which has emerged in BJP and AAP has clearly shown that they have become personality cults; so much so that the leaders of both these parties do not feel any hesitation in ruthlessly taking control and sidelining all other leaders, who could be a potential threat. Is it not time that the functioning of the party system in India is streamlined by imposing stricter electoral laws?
The story of the Indian political system has now become an endless soap opera where many of the leaders are afflicted by communalism, caste, community and religious biases. Some of them even have links with mafia groups, assorted variety of criminals, fundamentalist organisations and militant groups. On the one end, there are leaders of different political parties, who run their organisations on the basis of their personal likes, dislikes and whims and on the other end, arbitrary changing of party or group loyalty is endemic.
The factional groups in most parties are non-ideological and have neither the vision for the good of the people nor any capability to govern and undertake responsibilities. It is now clear that parties such as AAP lack discipline and have very poor understanding of the maintenance of public ethics in respect of party functioning. The growing tendency of cartelisation in most political parties of our country is bound to harm the very foundation of Indian democracy. Political parties are the primary vehicles that run democracies with probity. If they do not maintain the basic values of governance, then India’s reputation as the largest democracy of the world remains unfounded. It will need herculean efforts from our citizens to make parties accountable, as instruments for good governance.
Political parties should seriously consider adopting the leadership convention system. This will have positive results. First, it would make the leadership selection process more democratic and federal. Second, the nation would introduce a nationally aggregative mechanism in major parties and curb the tendency of regionalisation and fragmentation. This could go a long way in making parties aggregative and thus more functional in a parliamentary federal system of governance.
There is a need to find ways to curb the continued fragmentation of the party system and mushrooming of regional parties in the larger interest of the democracy. For this, the existing requirement of the four percent of the total number of valid votes polled for the recognition of political parties, as contained in Paragraph 6 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, should be increased to ten. Laws could be enacted for mergers of groups or alliances having the same or similar ideologies and programmes to reduce the number of parties. This would eliminate duplication of effort and promote the chances of a clearer electoral verdict.
Can a country like India be left to such politicians who are a bunch of yo-yos? Can we allow our country to fall into a trap where the prime ministership or chief ministership becomes a popularity contest run over few weeks and few months and later the electorate find themselves cheated and conned? Can we allow for a political system where concerns for the basic issues plaguing the common man are fading away and parties spend most of their time and energy in fire-fighting their internal battles rather than in governance? We would be doing injustice to our democratic polity if we fail to address these issues properly and sincerely.
Author is editor and CEO of News Views India
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