Jubilee Post News & Views
Vivek Avasthi
The protest against NRC-CAA-NPR which started on December 15, last year, has reached its 43rd day today. The entire road is closed, business establishments and shops are shut, students and commuters are not able to pass through the blocked road but one thing seems to be really strange. The much vocal Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party are maintaining an eerie silence on this issue.
With just over a week to go for polling for Delhi Assembly, Home Minister Amit Shah launched a scathing attack on Kejriwal and appealed the voter to “puch EVM button on February 8 with such anger that Shaheen Bagh feels current”.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also did not spare either Kejriwal or Rahul Gandhi on this issue. He said “ Shaheen Bagh is emerging as a textbook case of a few hundred people seeking to suppress the peaceful majority. This is the true face of Shaheen Bagh and uncovering it in front of the country is very important. Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal are both silent on this issue,”.
“It is offering platform to ‘TukdeTukde Gang’ elements under the garb of opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act. This protest is not just a protest against CAA it is a protest against Modi,” Prasad added.
But then too Kejriwal has chosen not to react to the barbs of the BJP leadership.
Delhi Chief Minister has, strangely enough, not visited the dharna site in Shaheen Bagh even once in these 47 days as if Shaheen Bagh is not in Delhi, Kejriwal’s Delhi.Kejriwal, a politician known as some one who hits back hard at his detractors, is somehow keeping a low profile on the issue of Shaheen Bagh and so are his vocal leuitenents, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia.
A few days back, on a television channel, Kejriwal did break his silence on this issue by saying “My going there will not put a lid on NRC and CAA. If my presence would have helped, I would have ended it (CAA, NRC) in five minutes. If the Centre revokes CAA and NRC, then people protesting across the country, not just Shaheen Bagh, will return to their homes.”
Speaking on persecuted Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan living in six camps in Delhi, Kejriwal quipped “Chhai (six) camps keliyesatyanashkardiyapooredesh ka? The problems of Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, Jains andMuslimsliving in Delhi are my problem.
Aapko Pakistan kibadi problem padihai? Have you resolved the unemployment crisis being faced by Indian Hindus, Sikhs and Christians? You could not do so, that is why you are distracting people.”
But this is not the Arvind Kejriwal we know!
Arvind is better known as a street-fighter, an activist more than a politician. Why is he maintaining such a low profile in matters such as Shaheen Bagh, which are of utmost importance to the Capital? The man who led the Anna Hazare campaign in Delhi, missing from Shaheen Bagh protests, astonishing indeed.
Though his party leaders like Manish Sisodia have pledged support to the protestors of Shaheen Bagh, senior AAP leaders are till date, avoiding a visit to the area where hundreds of women are sitting on indefinite dharna for 47 days now.
Is this part of AAP election strategy?
Sources within the party say that yes, indeed this is a part of election strategy which has been made for the day of voting in Delhi, that is February 8. They say that the party is confident of a landslide victory in Delhi or Mini India.
Sources say that Kejriwal is well aware of the strategy of the BJP to create a major dent between the Hindu and minority vote of the Capital. They say that as Kejriwal is well informed that he is enjoying the support of the masses of both Hindus and Muslims, he does not want to be under the eye of storm by going to Shaheen Bagh at present as one the BJP would immediately dub him as anti-Hindu and an ardent supporter of the ‘TukdeTukde Gang’.
Thousands of people, including women and children, have been protesting since December 15 at Shaheen Bagh against the CAA. Kejriwal, it seems, as a part of his election strategy, is simply buying time till Febraury 8 and once voting is over in Delhi, Kejriwal and his core team could very well be seen spending hours at a stretch in Shaheen Bagh.
After all, winning elections and countering the opponent is the real art of politics. And whether Arvind Kejriwal mastered the arts of politics or not, will be known to the country by the afternoon of February 12.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
