On The spot
Tavleen Singh
The street in which Arvind Kejriwal held his ‘chaupal’ was narrow, filthy and crowded. Stray dogs wandered between the small collection of red plastic chairs looking confused and frightened, stray cows added their bit to the excrement that already paved the street and children darted up to AAP volunteers to grab their free Aam Aadmi caps. Kejriwal was meant to arrive at 4 pm so I got there a few minutes before to find that even the stage was not yet ready. Volunteers in white caps were still trying to raise a banner that had his picture on it along with these words. ‘Desh ko bachaney key liye hamara parivar Arvind Kejriwal key netritva mein Aam Aadmi Party key saath hai.’ Behind the rickety stage advertisements for MAA Computer Education and G.S. Coaching Center indicated that Dara Nagar was a middle class locality. I settled myself on a red plastic chair and watched AAP volunteers setting up a very primitive sound system.
A man who introduced himself as a founder member of AAP came and sat on the chair next to me and asked if I was from Delhi. When I said yes he seemed relieved and explained that all the volunteers at the meeting were from Delhi and were finding it hard to negotiate their way around Benares. His name was Rajnish Verma and he forewarned me that Kejriwal would not be coming before 5.30. So we had a little chat. As if to explain why the sound system was so crackly and primitive he said that AAP did not have the funds to compete with the BJP. ‘Ambani and Adani have put in Rs 1000 crores into Modi’s campaign,’ he said ‘but we hope nevertheless to be able to get between 100 and 150 seats in the Lok Sabha so that we can be the main opposition party. The Congress is finished.’
When I told him that I had witnessed the exhibition of mass support that greeted Modi when he came to file his nomination papers the day before he was dismissive. ‘The people are stupid,’ he said and with that our conversation ended because the sound system was now alive with crackly slogans. Har Har Mahadev. Inquilab Zindabad. ‘Paisey pey, na daru pey. Button dabbeyga jhadu pey.’ Soon local poets and politicians appeared on the stage to talk of how ‘darkness will be dissipated by the light of an AAP victory’ and how Modi had gone off in his helicopter because he knew that Benares would never accept him. There were Muslim speakers who talked of the city’s ‘ganga-jamuni tehzeeb’ and recited satirical poems about how the new education policy had a clause that said only the children of the rich could study in Dehra Dun…’the rest of you get used to becoming rickshaw pullers’.
It was 5.30 by the time Kejriwal arrived to cries of Vande Matram, Har Har Mahadev, Inquilab Zindabad and Bharat Mata ki Jai. He began his meeting by asking how many people in the audience would be voting for Modi and when he saw that far too many hands went up he told them of how he had a similar experience in a village recently and of how he had convinced them otherwise. Then he announced that he was not here to make a speech but to have a conversation and asked if there was anyone who would like to ask him a question. So a man went up to the stage and asked him why he was against Modi adding that he was wrong to oppose Modi because he had done so much for Gujarat.
He made a longish speech for someone who was meant only to ask a question so Kejriwal stopped the questions and began his own speech. In it he said all the things that he usually tells people. In self-congratulatory tones he talked of how it was he who had first exposed the land deals of Robert Vadra. He told them that the so-called development in Gujarat was a myth created by the media that he had exposed by going there and discovering that there was enormous corruption in postings and that the farmers were desperate and poor. Ambani-Adani, he said, were the only people who had benefited from the Gujarat model of development that was why they had put Rs 5000 crores into Modi’s campaign. ‘And, think how much they will want to make from this if he does get elected?’
Then he told them that he was the only person who had dared register an FIR against Mukesh Ambani. He had done in this as chief minister of Delhi in the face of immense opposition from officials who warned him that he had no right to do this because it was against the constitution. The small gathering applauded his bravery. This emboldened him to compare himself to Ram. He could have refused to give up the throne and spend fourteen years in the wilderness but he did not. ‘These days it is hard to get a peon to give up his job and I gave up the job of being chief minister as a matter of principle. For this they charge me with running away from governing Delhi, they call me a ‘bhagoda’ but they do not know that to give up such a big job a 56″ chest is not enough you need guts.’
When he started to outline his achievements in 49 days of being Delhi’s chief minister I decided it was time to go because what I had hoped to hear about was Kejriwal’s economic and political agenda. What his policies would be like and of this I heard not a single word. All he did was attack the two main political parties in this election and praise himself. All he did was attack big business without explaining whom he would like to see private corporations replaced by. Would he like us to go back to those times when the public sector was all powerful? Would he like us to go back to times when officials had total charge of running India’s economy? He did not say this in so many words but by the time I walked back along that filthy, crowded street in Dara Nagar I was more than certain that in his heart Kejriwal would like these things to happen because in his heart he believes that private enterprise is evil and officials are good. So if I were voting in Benares it would not be for him.
Follow our WhatsApp channel