Kejriwal needs to understand the sensitivity of his post. While leading an illegal protest, he is not only putting national security in jeopardy, he is also decreasing public-police faith.
Today Delhi is facing a sea of perplexity. The national capital is caught between the dual position that it holds in the country and a change of political hands. In a first, the Delhi chief minister is holding a dharna against the union home ministry.
The newly elected chief minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, his cabinet, MLAs and party workers are outside Rail Bhavan demanding action against police officials who refused to carry out an illegal raid on an alleged drug and prostitution racket in South Delhi last week.
While doing this, Kejriwal is not only defying prohibitory orders in force in the high-security area near the seat of power, he is also vehemently supporting his law minister Somnath Bharti’s goondaism which should have been punished.
But he chooses to act otherwise. He is demanding suspension of those police officers who refused to conduct an illegal raid without orders from court by the home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.
Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party was very quick to put corruption charges on Shinde remembering former secretary RK Singh’s weeks old allegations. They conveniently shifted the attention from the issue of Bharti’s hooliganism to the central position of Delhi Police.
Defending the dharna, Kejriwal waved a letter from the Ugandan High Commission saying that the women from the country were brought to Delhi on the promise of job and pushed in the sex racket. He and his party leaders, who held a press conference at the same time, claimed that the letter was given to them by the Ugandan High Commission saying that the Ugandan women were used for drug peddling in India.
Till the recent reports poured in, the Ugandan High Commission has denied knowledge of any such letter, dated July 2013, handed over to the AAP or any of its members.
So, is Kejriwal and his government lying?
Kejriwal government, which talks about security of women in the country, publicly humiliated these women and forced them to go through cavity search and public urination. He even forgets that women are being raped in his state and he is not doing anything for that.
“Rapes keep happening in Delhi every other day, and the police say that the investigation is on. Someone needs to be held responsible for the carelessness and increasing crime, curbing which is the responsibility of the Delhi police then why should Delhi Police not be held responsible for the rapes?” asks Kejriwal defending his actions.
When Kejriwal says that the Danish woman was gang-raped in Delhi solely because the police is under central government, it seems like he is shaking away the responsibility of safety of women in his state. He is also blaming the Delhi Police for a lackadaisical attitude in the case when the fact is that the police is already working on the case and trying to bring the woman to justice. He is also taking away the faith that the public should put on the Delhi police thereby decreasing and chances of public-police partnership.
He needs to understand that he is no more an activist. He is a chief minister now and he has taken oath to go by the constitution of the country. He also needs to understand the sensitivity of the chair he is sitting on. The state he is ruling houses the central government and important central offices which requires control over the police. But rather than governing and taking a legal route to everything, Kejriwal opted to lead an illegal protest. Also, the number of police personnel that has been deployed near Rail Bhavan due to this tension created by his government could have been deployed elsewhere to make his Delhi safer.
Republic Day is just six days away and intelligence agencies have issued a red alert to the city. AAP and Kejriwal know that Jantar Mantar is the designated area for protest and that the entire stretch from Vijay Chowk to Rajpath needs to be sanitized before the Republic Day. Despite this fact he has announced that his illegal dharna will continue for 10 days or until central government gives in.
It is quite possible that the unsocial elements may take advantage of his protest and an untoward incident happens before or during Republic Day or during the beating retreat ceremony. But Kejriwal doesn’t seem to care about it at all.
Also, four metro stations have been closed regarding the protest. Police personnel have barricaded routes to Rail Bhavan for the same. This is putting a heavy toll on the general public which is finding it hard to travel from one place to another in the national capital.
Kejriwal needs to get it that signing files while sitting on street leading an illegal protest and creating a state of lawlessness is not governance, it is just a gimmick. He is not making it easy for the people of Delhi, who will soon start to regret their decision. And the people of this nation will respond to this holding-gun-to-the-temple-for-everything attitude strongly, very soon.
