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| But I have promises that I cannot keep | | | Balbir Punj | 3/17/2015 11:31:21 PM |
| We should continue to hope - though the signs are ominous to not make us hope - that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and associates will not turn out to be another bubble on the Yamuna
It won't be surprising if the people of Delhi have become suspicious of what is going on in the
Aam Aadmi Party and what its leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is up to
within a month of winning a massive mandate for of the party. The party's intellectual gurus have come out accusing the AAP convener governing the city-state. The party had been declaring from the rooftop of the house that it will be a party with a difference inasmuch as it will involve the people in decision-making. It also produced 70 manifestoes - one each for the 70 Assembly constituencies. Now, two senior founder members have accused Kejriwal of disregarding the party apparatus and taking decisions by himself. Even as the storm around the accusations and counter-accusations was raging, the centre-piece of the show was missing, confined to a nature clinic in Bangalore. Why were the party leaders insisting on a discussion about the activities of the two lead founder members, Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, both noted intellectuals of high integrity? The issue could have waited Kejriwal's return as he was at the centre of the controversy raised both by Yadav and Bhushan. Then why was it rushed in like this? If the difference of opinion means expulsion from party forums, how is the AAP different from other parties? Kejriwal could not be unaware that this question would be raised if the party's Political Affairs Committee went ahead without him and expelled the two questioners out of it. That means there was some deliberation in Kejriwal's tactic of asking the PAC to go ahead to take the decision in his absence.Promise first, think later - this seems to be the guiding star of the AAP. Take for instance, the promise of slashing power charges by half and providing free water. Within days of returning to Indraprastha, Chief Minister Kejriwal announced a 50 per cent cut in power rates and free supply of water subject to a limit for lower income groups. This may have gone a long way to reassure the people, who gave such a massive majority to the party.
However, the State Government now says it has asked an expert committee to assess the overall power situation, especially the cost range from generation to distribution, including the investments that the power distributing companies have made - which would also be gone into by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. It is rational to go on the assessment that, in a situation where the State Government was already subsidising power rates for low income groups and the middle class, and the power charges were fixed after the independent regulator was convinced of their fairness, the margin that any expert could find in the accounts of the power distributing companies could only be small. If that is so, the question arises: How far are these huge cuts in power charges for consumers justified? It is unrealistic to expect the Delhi Government under Kejriwal to roll back the cuts, as it would be political suicide. The only 'rational' approach would be to maintain the cuts and bleed the discoms to such an extent that they would be forced to quit the business and knock at the courts' doors to recover the investments they made in the distribution structure. The Kejriwal Government will not return the money, if our hunch is right. Will another private sector distributor venture where the two lead corporate firms had found the business unrewarding in the context of the AAP regime's intent and action? More important did the party make any estimate before giving the promise? Will the State Government raise taxes to pay for the huge subsidy bill if the lowest and uneconomic power rates are to be maintained?
Of course, there is the well-tried way out: Blame the Centre for not giving more to Delhi, and build up an anti-Centre agitation on this basis. AAP leaders can sit in protest before the Shram Shakti Bhavan, with Chief Minister Kejriwal running the Government and clearing files from the roadside sit-ins, in full view of the public. What that can lead to, was demonstrated when a similar sit in before Rail Bhavan last time ended in a fiasco. Politics is a hard taskmaster. You can fool all the people once, but not all the time. Economics is an even harder and heartless enforcer. Making up deficits in budgets by raising taxes has also its limits. The question is: Why have these committees and postures after the event? The party should have prepared a study before the promise was made. Governments are learning the core lesson of economics that there is no 'post-office socialism', as economist JK Galbraith had cautioned Jawaharlal Nehru.It does not need much political insight to realise that the present tantrums within the AAP may just be a precursor to the impending implosion among the rulers of Indraprastha. For evidence of such an apprehension, there is no need to consult the psephologists or the astrologers. History is replete with such internal dissensions. The Janata Governments of 1978 and 1989 imploded despite the goodwill they had gained, within months of their massive electoral victory. Indira Gandhi, with all her political insight, could certainly win the battle against her own party's group leaders with the Garibi hatao slogan, but she could not sustain the miasma and was faced with massive protests within four years of her convincing electoral victory.
Several other movements in the last six decades at State and Central levels collapsed within months of their success and beneficiary parties coming to power. Take, for instance, the students' movement in Assam in the 1980s, that converted itself into a political party like Mr Kejriwal did with his anti-corruption crusade. From the days of the French Revolution in the late 18th century onwards, the path of history is replete with broken hearts, severed heads, starving people and collapsed movements once the crusaders tasted power.
History teaches us that, for political parties to be successful in Government, they have to evolve through the churn of events over generations. Even in this age of slot machine outputs, that rule would prevail. Besides, only political parties seasoned in the harsh churn of long years, alternating between hope and despair, are capable of limiting their offer to what they can deliver.
However, as the people of Delhi have invested so much faith and hope in the Aam Aadmi Party's electoral victory, giving it 67 out of 70 seats, we should continue to hope that Chief Minister Kejriwal and associates will not turn out to be another bubble on the Yamuna.
( Courtsey@daily pioneer.com) |
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