CBI raid by 'psychopath' Modi is a win-win for Kejriwal
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it,” wrote George Bernard a long time ago. Either Narendra Modi is not a Shaw fan or his top colleagues do not brief him about what the top sleuths at his top investigating agency are up to.
The CBI goes and raids the office of the principal secretary of the chief minister of Delhi and then says we didn’t raid the CM, but an officer in the CMO. What does that even mean? I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot no deputy. Oh no! Oh, of course, the CBI has the powers to raid an officer if the officer himself has been singing for days.
What Modi should have learnt by now is to never give an opportunity to Arvind Kejriwal to cry victim. You get called the psychopath and he perpetuates his divinely-ordained innocent/honest man status. Why shouldn’t he love it? You can’t grudge a man his politics, especially when he happens to be a politician.
Playing victim is a legitimate political tool that Narendra Modi has used to his advantage in the past. Remember the time when any criticism of Modi was a criticism of five crore Gujaratis. Forget victim, Kejriwal will play dead if playing dead was possible. An accidental nick during shaving will not be blamed on the blade or Modi, but nobody stops one from claiming that the tiny drop of blood was spent righting a wrong or fighting corruption.
Kejriwal is not an upstart in politics and AAP is no longer a start-up. He used to be a politician in activist’s wool. He made a muffler out of it, or as some claim, pulled it over Delhi’s eyes. He is not going to miss a knock of opportunity. And the CBI knocking on your door is a golden one.
Look at the Shakur Basti slum demolition. It was cruel and inhuman to demolish homes in this biting winter. The Delhi government knew about what was coming: the bulldozer. It was not only about illegal encroachment removal, because hundreds of such clusters remain untouched for years and will remain so, because no party risks the poor vote. Or the rich vote in Sainik Farms on the other end of the encroachment spectrum. But a railway terminus planned at Shakur Basti couldn’t have been built at Sainik Farms.
The terminus, badly needed, as railways have increased capacity without expanding its terminals, wasn’t taking off because the land was occupied by these poor settlers. Both the police and the local government were in the know. The railways had put up three notices for eviction.
The local government did nothing to rehabilitate these people. In fact, the government waited for the demolition to take place and then the chief minister swung into action to stand with the displaced. He suspended three of his officers, as if they acted on their own, but not before the bulldozers flattened the area.
Kejriwal did not hesitate in politicising the death of a child, though it was not related to the demolition drive. Why would he? He is a politician looking for mileage. Mileage is what we are obsessed about; as the Maruti advertisement says: Kitna deti hai?
When Rahul Gandhi jumped in to claim his share of the political pie, he called him a kid no voter should take seriously.
Just a week ago, one of his senior officers was arrested. The news about his ill-gotten wealth from unaccounted sources splashed on Delhi newspapers did not draw Mr Kejriwal’s attention. He didn’t claim then that an honest officer was being made a scapegoat to send a signal to other honest officers of Delhi.
No.
There were murmurs about Rajender Kumar’s past record. Even Kejriwal while denouncing Modi said the case against Rajender Kumar were from the time he worked in the Sheila Dikshit government. In all likelihood, a raid was about to happen. Kejriwal waited till the inevitable happened, the raid on Rajender Kumar’s office, which is no different from Chief Minister Kejriwal’s office, no matter what the CBI tells you. The secretaries are the chief minister’s office. So when the CBI says it did not raid the chief minister’s office, it is only telling the half-truth.
The CBI should not, ideally, hesitate in raiding any office. When the Supreme Court said the CBI had the right to raid officers without the consent of the government, Kejriwal had applauded the judgment. Today, Kejriwal is crying victim because the CBI did not seek his consent. Political convenience may be immoral, but there’s nothing illegal about it. And Mr Kejriwal is a politician.
The government is already struggling in Parliament as important bills can’t become acts because the Opposition doesn’t want the government to succeed in legislation. They have kept the house hanging over one issue or the other. The Kejriwal-friendly parties – JDU and TMC – will call this the dawn of an undeclared Emergency. The moral high ground is a lonely place, yet there’s always a crowd out there eager to occupy it.
The Modi government’s problem is simple: the message. This is not in its grip. From the land acquisition bill to the GST, it has mismanaged the message bit. The message is as important as action. Any message that can be twisted, will be twisted beyond recognition. The demolition in Shakur Basti and the raid in the Delhi Secretariat had inherent holes of mixed messaging. Prakash Javadekar can cry foul till the cows come home, but it was Kejriwal who struck the first blow in the message war. He has the early mover advantage. Again.