by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
A 43-year-old woman died after she came under the wheels of a bus while crossing road during the wee hours of the day. Her fault ! She had no toilet at home and was forced to cross the road every morning to use the facility on the other side. Though the incident had taken place in North West Delhi's posh Model Town area where Jhuggi-Jhopris dwellers are a pampered lot due to vote bank politics pursued by parties (be it Congress, Aam Admi Party or the BJP), the news was buried inside in leading newspapers.
The unfortunate death could have been averted had the lone community toilet not been demolished by area lords due to "stench". No amount of protests by hundreds of Jhuppi-jhopriwalas could move the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) under the Delhi government to prevent its demolition. The BJP which is ruling three Municipal Corporations of Delhi didn't move its finger either. The Congress leadership, after losing the plot in Delhi to AAP, is too busy these days with seeking the resignations of Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhararaje Scindia and Shivraj Singh Chouhan. No heart bled for the poor woman despite TV channels running promotional advertisements by Vidya Balan & other celebrities 24X7 at the cost of hundreds of crores of rupees to promote construction of toilets across the country. Rather, the Delhi Police under Thakur Saheb as Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is popularly called, failed to trace the driver of the bus. The Police also was unable to explain as to why it did not intervene in the matter when the community toilet was demolished by the area lords and a complaint was filed with it by the toilet caretaker. The DUSIB which functions directly Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal washed its hands off saying it was not aware that community toilet had been demolished.
If one wants to check the success of Narendra Modi's ambitious Swachh Bharat campaign in the first year of its launch in Delhi, it's certainly a big No. Despite making tall promises, the three MCDs have failed to construct a single toilet as part of the massive cleanliness drive. As Modi's flagship project completes one year on August 15, not a single toilet has been built by the three MCDs. Of course, 112 toilets are under-construction and a proposal to build another 94 is pending. Welcome to achhe din in the capital city of India.
In the sixty weeks since June 1 last year, there is spurt in crime against women in Delhi with 6 rapes and 13 molestations per day taking place. Women are particularly insecure. Single women are hardly to be seen at public places in the evening. And equally unsafe are the children; among 53 mega-cities, the National Capital Region has been regarded as the most unsafe for children. Not that Delhi was ever quite a law abiding city, but the spike in crime during the past one year is perplexing. The police say it is due to increased awareness and online registration of FIRs that more cases are being reported. That may be partly correct but the absence of authority or a power struggle in Delhi is visible, never experienced earlier.
One only wonders how it can happen in the Capital which has the distinction of having a Prime Minister who is workaholic, hardly sleeps, a hard task-master and whose dictum is minimum government, maximum governance. His men are chosen on the basis of performance and he is a result oriented no-nonsense person.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is a Prime Minister in waiting and willing to wait. He fought for the CM's post as stridently as Modi fought within and outside his own party for the PM's. Kejriwal also has to deliver rather than engaging in a daily brawl either with the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi or the Centre.
Rahul Gandhi is also fighting to regain the ground he single-handedly lost after back-seat driving with his mother for ten long years. After the Congress was routed and reduced to a mere 44 MPs in the Lok Sabha, he is banking on the dwindling lung power and hoping for a miracle. And why not. When his uncle late Sanjay Gandhi could perform this feat in 1980 when he dislodged the Janata Party government within three years of coming to power in the post- Emergency era General Elections, why can't he four decades later.
Gone are the days when the BJP was a collective
enterprise...
Modi faced last year's poll independent of the party.
Kejriwal is also a practitioner of 'party-less election'.
However, in the melee of bitter power struggle, the Delhite is suffering and so is country's image. Modi is the Chief Executive Officer of the country including Delhi which is a Union Territory, is his responsibility.
Gone are the days when the BJP was a collective enterprise with every member or supporter offering his input. Modi faced last year's poll independent of the party and said so clearly in his first address to the MPs in the Central Hall of Parliament as well.
He changed the rule of the game. He won all State Assemblies, be it Haryana, Maharashtra or Jharkhand seeking votes in his name. He fumbled in Delhi for some strange reasons by projecting Kiran Bedi, a rank-outsider, as Chief Ministerial candidate and paid the price. Perhaps, he failed to realize that Arvind Kejriwal is the most consistent practitioner of the rising cult of 'part-less election' too.
AAP is not much of a political party in the old sense. It has no 'bhavan', unlike Congress or BJP. Except Kejriwal's, its other faces flit in and out of the party when they please, the departure of handsome, and raucous, Shazia Ilmi, Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan etc. AAP is a Kejriwal show all the way.
Modi and Kejriwal fought elections as individuals. If they have worn garlands on their shoulder, they should be ready for egg on their face if Delhi remains what it is today.
(The author is National Editor, Lokmat group)
