dna edit: Three sides of the same coin

Is the aam aadmi’s dream dying yet another cruel death (it happens all the time) on account of the very people who weaved it? One might argue — depending on her/his ‘aam admi’ quotient — whether or not this is too premature a thought. And Somnath Bharti might also wonder if this columnist receives money from ‘un-AAP’ forces. However, these cannot stop the march of a question whose time has come.

The real problem for AAP is not Somnath Bharti or the bad Press that it is now getting. What actually inflicts the unkindest cut on Kejriwal’s body politic is that the public discourse has now changed.

No longer are people talking about how AAP will fix the ‘System’ – they are now loudly wondering if the ‘AAP System’ itself needs fixing. Coming a few months before the national elections, this is a perfect storm.

In the capital of conspiracy theories (read Delhi), one that is doing the rounds is that the present arrangement of letting AAP run a government is perfectly dovetailed into the electoral politics of both the Congress and BJP. With every comment of Bharti, with every guerrilla tactic of Kejriwal, with every reference to Khirki Extension and with every visual of a state cabinet out on the street – the principal contenders of the general elections are getting less and less worried.

That is perhaps why the Congress is not withdrawing support despite getting lacerated every day by AAP’s insults, and the BJP not pushing hard enough. ‘Let it stew in its own juice’ may be an after-thought, but it is as cunning as it gets.

In the midst of this Congress-BJP-AAP hate triangle, what lies in tatters is the agenda for the aam aadmi. Dharnas, vigilantism, shooting the media and bringing cities to a halt are no substitutes to sane, clean and responsible governance. On this Republic Day, in no uncertain terms, let us tell them that!

—The writer is the Executive Editor