While one should note that the tone of the whole interview is almost, almost neutral, the interview which was telecasted was what Vishwas and others loathing AAP would have wanted.
Remember the time when assembly elections in Delhi were held last year?
The Aam Aadmi Party had declared itself the winner of the fight despite emerging as the second largest party in the NCR.
The Bhartiya Janata Party’s win over 32 seats was masked by their debut clinch of 28 seats and a victory procession at Jantar Mantar.
That was the time when Kumar Viswas was being seen as an important part of AAP.
Even though he had not fought assembly elections, he was the face which sprung up on the window of AAP headquarters every time an AAP candidate won or took a lead against its opponent from a seat.
At Jantar Mantar, enthused by his party’s debut, Vishwas had finally declared that he will fight against Rahul Gandhi from his turf Amethi.
He was being seen as a hero.
But there, everything turned around.
For two months, Vishwas toiled in Amethi. He camped there, met people from various strata, heard their problems and even tweeted about the lack of amenities is Amethi. Alas, BJP fielded Smriti Irani at the last minute and Rahul won the seat by minimum margins making Vishwas come a distant third.
A big reason behind Vishwas’s loss was absence of any big leader from AAP (read Arvind Kejriwal) in his constituency. Also, the fall of AAP government in Delhi within 49 days had almost proved the sckeptics right.
After this episode, Vishwas was nowhere to be heard and seen. The camera loving speaker and poet was hiding somewhere in his house, probably sulking over his loss.
Then suddenly, he appeared on camera after two months, claiming that he has been approached by a BJP MLA who has offered his the post of Delhi CM. Although the statement was made to help AAP which was crowing about horse-trading by BJP, it clearly showed what ambitions Vishwas was hiding.
Vishwas was neither an MLA nor a part of Kejriwal-led government, yet the BJP chose to sideline big leaders of AAP and offer him CM post?
It was a good ploy to make his return in the inner circle of the party. But he still did not make it.
So, here was Vishwas, giving an interview to TimesNow, where he lavishly praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi – a force that AAP wants to destroy anyhow – and criticising his own leader Arvind Kejriwal.
“Narendra Modi is a comparatively better PM than Manmohan Singh… the Modi government is coming out of the policy paralysis,” Vishwas told Times Now.
He also praised Modi for the measures taken by the Central government in flood-hit Jammu & Kashmir and his ‘successful’ trip to Japan. On being quizzed about his own political affiliation, Vishwas said, “If the PM does well, I have the right to praise him. If he does not perform, I have an equal right to criticise him.”
“He (Modi) is not a political rival… Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of this country. He is not the Prime Minister of the BJP. He is the Prime Minister of 125-crore Indians,” Vishwas said.
Vishwas said he had received an invitation for an event celebrating Modi’s birthday. While he admitted to having attended such events in the past, he was non-committal on whether he would honour the invitation this year.
When asked if attending the event would mean he was making a political statement, Vishwas said, “I went there last year and the year before that… Why will my party object to it?” Asked if he was considering leaving the AAP to join the BJP, Vishwas said, “I will never join the BJP. Sometime in the future, though, I might leave the AAP…”
He said AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal should have explained the reasons for the AAP government resigning in Delhi much before he actually did. He also said that agitational politics is not going to help the AAP. “Being in government, you can’t sit on a dharna or stage demonstration on each and every issue. We shouldn’t behave like a ‘typical political party’,” he said.
While one should note that the tone of the whole interview is almost, almost neutral, the interview which was telecasted was what Vishwas and others loathing AAP would have wanted.
Now Vishwas is in the limelight.
His party (read Ashutosh and others) is fighting for him saying that the interview has been twisted.
But Vishwas is sitting calm, as for him “channel head can reply on that better.”
