Orop suicide: Kejriwal's Rs 1 crore donation to Grewal's family is political opportunism

The Chief Minister of Delhi on Thursday made the grand gesture of donating Rs 1 crore to the family of an ex-serviceman, who had committed suicide in Delhi, at his funeral in Bhiwani, Haryana. Is this rank political opportunism? Is this with an eye of reaching out to the Punjab electorate in the forthcoming elections, simultaneously touching the hearts of the armed services community; equally with an eye to attacking the Prime Minister for his ‘anti-national’ and ‘anti-armed services’ posture? If he had done the contribution from his private funds, nobody would object – the funds are from the exchequer of the Delhi government, which is highly subsidised by the national exchequer! The armed forces are held in the highest esteem by every Indian. The glorious duty of defending our borders rest on their shoulders. The average Indian sees the armed forces with veneration. It will be a tragedy if political parties use the various incidents relating to the Army as political ammunition to feather their own private interests; bring the noble forces for daily analysis by party hacks who have their own petty political agenda, with no regard to overall national interest. [caption id=“attachment_3087736” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal met the family of ex-serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal in Bhiwani on Thursday. PTI[/caption] The judiciary, the armed forces and Constitutional agencies like the CEC, the CAG and the like are held in great regard and respect by every Indian – they should not be brought in as subject of attention with narrow political and vote bank interests of individual hick politicians, who are keen to score brownie points in and out of season against their political opponents. In the instant case, while all facts are not known, the likelihood is that there has been a significant delay in sanctioning a portion of the pension which was due to the ex-serviceman – whether it was routine lax administration, or based on Orop anomaly interpretation, or another related reason is not factually clear. Nearly in every state and central agency, maladministration is rampant – indeed it is the exception that carries the day, not of meeting the legitimate entitlements and claims of the ex-serviceman, ex-civilian employee, teacher, farmer – indeed the average citizen – each one is victim at different times to the vagaries of an inefficient, corrupt and callous administration, at the Centre or the state. Will Kejriwal sanction Rs 1 crore to every aggrieved citizen of Delhi, (indeed of our nation as he considers himself a national saviour), for every wrong committed on each citizen? All the exchequers of the nation will not be sufficient to meet a fraction of such a gesture. Now that it is established that Kejriwal will do nothing to improve the air quality in Delhi (after dabbling with odd-even traffic regulation last year, and finding it contributed nothing for his personal glory in terms of political vote bank), now that schools are shutting down, the wealthy are sending their children out of Delhi for their education, and poor young children are losing their lungs, will Kejriwal now sanction Rs 1 crore to every affected family? Tens of thousands of farmers have committed suicides all over India in the past decade, many of them due to failure of the monsoon, or large policy gaps concerning lack of credit, or for wrong introduction of GM (Genetically Modified crops), thuggery in the tehsil or pension or transport office, banditry in the thana, corruption at lower courts, callousness in the hospital – the list is endless – will Kejriwal sanction Rs 1 crore to the family of each victim? Almost certainly he will, if he believes in each case, that it will create a credible link to get a segment of a vote bank, or to throw mud at the L-G of Delhi – these are the sole motivating factors. Suddenly Rahul Gandhi has exhibited great concern for the welfare of the armed forces and for implementation of Orop. Recall that for 40 years, his party steadfastly not only gave no attention to Orop, but on several occasions specifically announced that Orop is not acceptable as a principle – suddenly the party is the champion of Orop! When a successive government has indeed overturned the Congress policy and announced the Orop, substantially meeting all demands in this regard, and the work of the ‘anomalies committee’ to sort out discrepancies is in the very final stage, Rahul finds it imperative to use the Indian Armed Forces as ammunition to show up the failure of national governance! How despicable, opportunistic, and condemnable this attempt to bring the noble armed forces to public attention in the context of a gorilla war that the Congress is fighting with the BJP. Have we lost all morality in our politics? Isn’t the Congress responsible for massively contributing to over 70 percent of the population living sub-human hand-to-mouth existence 70 years after Independence? Of the inability of our agriculture to sustain the nation, collapse of the cities, galloping corruption in every aspect of our civic life, public health in shambles, Indian primary education only inferior to Kyrgyzstan in international standards – are these not the handy work of the Congress party to usher in basic governance models? There should be some national norms by all political parties not to bring national institutions into public discussion to meet their own petty party needs. The nation is much bigger than any individual party or person who is now in power or been in power earlier, or aspiring to. Let our political parties not destroy our own national interests. Freedom to speak or to act in a democracy comes with a collateral responsibility to contribute to national welfare and not to decimate institutions.