Political Sibling Rivalry in Delhi Election
Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi have forgotten about the anti-corruption crusade that brought them to limelight while corruption persists in the country.
By Rakesh Raman
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today declared Kiran Bedi, a former police officer, as its candidate for the post of Chief Minister in the Delhi election, scheduled to take place on February 7.
Ms. Bedi is in the first list of 62 candidates who have been selected by BJP to contest the election in Delhi. Eight more candidates are yet to be identified by the party to cover all the 70 state Assembly seats.
Party president Amit Shah led the Central Election Committee of the BJP today to select the candidates. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and other BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, and Sushma Swaraj.
In the election, Bedi will have a direct fight against Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal, who has also positioned himself as the chief ministerial candidate.
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Kejriwal and Bedi were close friends (like a brother-sister team) a few years ago when both of them were the main supporters of social activist Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign in India. But both were cunningly using Hazare and his campaign to gain popularity and launch their political careers.
During the Hazare’s campaign, both – Kejriwal and Bedi – accused almost every politician in India and had publicly pledged that they will never join politics, which is largely considered a dirty game in India. However, after ditching Hazare, both possessed by greed are now playing the same dirty game.
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Kejriwal and Bedi have forgotten about the anti-corruption crusade that brought them to limelight while corruption persists in the country.
Although Kejriwal and Bedi were supporting each other in Hazare’s movement, now they are opposing each other in Delhi politics. It will be a kind of political sibling rivalry for them, as the genesis of their political birth is same – Anna Hazare’s movement.
Currently, AAP, BJP, and Congress are the three main parties in fray for the forthcoming Delhi election. However, the direct fight is expected to be between AAP and BJP, as Congress has almost thrown in the towel after the party’s crushing defeats in the last Delhi election and the recent Lok Sabha election.
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Although Congress is doing some canvassing, in the absence of a proper leader, its election campaigns are totally listless. Instead of delivering a positive messaging about its election plans, Congress is only blaming AAP and BJP.
Of late, Congress has released two documents – one against Kejriwal of AAP and the other against the BJP government in India. Both these documents carry the lists of false promises that Kejriwal and BJP have been making in the past.
About a week ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had started BJP’s election campaign in Delhi when he addressed a public meeting here.
In the last Delhi election, Kejriwal had managed to become the Chief Minister of Delhi with support from Congress. But he could stay in the post just for 49 days – from December 28, 2013 to February 14, 2014.
By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of RMN Company
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