‘This is the biggest crisis Kejriwal is facing in his life. If he is able to come out of this, then he will have a great future.’
IMAGE: Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal in the Rouse Avenue court om New Delhi, March 22, 2024, after his remand hearing in the Delhi excise policy case. Photograph: ANI Photo
Former journalist Ashutosh was closely involved with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party after joining it in 2014 and becoming its national spokesperson. Subsequently, in 2018, he quit the party for personal reasons.
“The biggest problem with Kejriwal is that he is an impulsive person. When he thinks and strategises a problem he comes out with a great solution. But when he gets provoked and takes impulsive decisions he makes mistakes,” Ashutosh tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com in the concluding segment of the interview.
What is the INDIA bloc’s future after Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest?
It is a big challenge for them now.
The Congress’ political funds have been frozen (by the income tax department). Opposition chief ministers are being sent to jail and those who are opposing the Bharatiya Janata Party are having FIRs registered against them. The ED is raiding Opposition parties and the government is finishing off the Opposition parties economically.
The INDIA bloc must seize this adverse moment and turn it into an opportunity by going to the public.
There used to be a Bollywood song Yeh public hai sab jaanti hai. Do you feel Indian voters know what is happening to the Opposition parties and how blatantly the BJP is misusing its power?
Does the public not understand that those who are corrupt and join the BJP get a clean chit and those who oppose them end up in jail?
Public hai yeh sab jaanti hai, rather I would say Yeh public hai yeh bahut kuch jaanti hai.
But this public wants a leader. Why does the public need a political party? They need a political party because what they want a political party to do is to articulate their sentiments by channelising and creating a wave of that sentiment to implement what they want. This is the job of the political party and political leadership.
At the time of Independence we Indians knew how the British were looting us and suppressing our freedom. The public needed Mahatma Gandhi then, and why? It is because Mahatma Gandhi had that talent to channelise the anger of Indians into an agitation and make Indians ready for the freedom movement.
Today, this is the moment that the public anger needs to be channelised against the Modi government by some political party or political leader, but will an Opposition party be able to do that? We need to wait and watch.
As far as AAP leaders are concerned, they need to prove now whether they will able to channelise public anger against the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal into a movement.
Why are Opposition leaders failing to channelise the sentiment against the government although there are so many issues like corruption in electoral bonds, inflation and unemployment which is at a 45-year high?
It is mainly for two reasons: Talent deficit in the ranks of the Opposition leaders, and the capture of media by the Modi government.
You never see the government getting criticised in the (mainstream) media.
Prime Minister Modi is never asked questions by the media and only one narrative is run in the media, that everything is going on fine.
Day in and day out they run the news that there is no better prime minister for India than Modi. And the media person who raises questions is considered as someone who is an enemy of the country.
This is another big problem for the Opposition parties too. Today, two Opposition chief ministers are in jail and FIRs are being filed against Opposition leaders right, left and centre.
If still Opposition parties cannot capture the imagination of the public anger, then the only answer we can think of is that Opposition leaders have a lack of talent.
If Opposition parties know that the media is not highlighting the atrocities to them and doing a blackout of their viewpoint, then the Opposition parties need to think out of the box. This out of the box thinking must compel the media to come to them and ask questions to Modi.
What future do you see for Arvind Kejriwal? Can he bounce back?
There have been many times in the past when Arvind Kejriwal was written off.
If you recall, in 2013 when he resigned as Delhi chief minister after 49 days in office, many people wrote him off then. He lost all seven seats in Delhi in 2014 and when he went to campaign for AAP the people of Delhi used to shut their doors on him.
And he changed all this within a year in the 2015 Delhi assembly elections. He won 67 out of 70 seats in Delhi and that too at a time when Modi’s popularity was at an all-time high.
You can never write off Arvind Kejriwal. He has a great talent as a politician.
But then this is the biggest crisis Kejriwal is facing in his life. If he is able to come out of this, then he will have a great future.
You knew him personally, what mistakes do you think he made as a politician because of which he has landed in jail?
The biggest problem with Kejriwal is that he is an impulsive person.
When he thinks and strategises a problem he comes out with a great solution. But when he gets provoked and takes impulsive decisions he makes mistakes.
The other problem with Kejriwal is that he does not have seasoned politicians in his party. The party has leaders who lack political talent.
A party like the BJP has bahut tapey tapaye neta (experienced hands as leaders). They may not be on the surface (or the face) of the party but their experience really works wonderfully for the party.
Can we say this sharab ghotala or excise policy was an impulsive decision by Kejriwal?
It will be difficult for me to comment on that because I am not privy to the information whether there is corruption or no corruption in the excise policy.
But, yes, Arvind Kejriwal should have been more careful (in implementing the excise policy).
