Escaping the Jitender Tomar fake degree scandal: One way Kejriwal can redeem himself

Jitendra Singh Tomar is not a liability suddenly flung at the Aam Aadmi Party, or its supremo, Arvind Kejriwal. There were warning signals, in the form of suggestions, and then the demand that Tomar be denied the ticket to contest the elections on a AAP ticket. The call for an investigation into his credentials had emanated loud and clear from within the party. But nothing happened. The two who raised the issue, among the several others, were public intellectuals like Yogendra Yadav, who apart from being the party’s ideologue also marshalled support from the middle-class and educated communities for AAP; and lawyer-founding member Prashant Bhushan. But the duo were kicked out of the party and made out to be the disruptive elements. [caption id=“attachment_2294400” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Does Kejriwal have an escape from the controversy? AFP image[/caption] The two, now on their own thankless and uphill mission of a Swaraj Abhiyan, will be relishing their moment. They were forced to pay the price for their probity and attempt to ensure it in the party’s functioning. They were perhaps seen as political romantics, when Kejriwal himself saw himself as pragmatist and projected himself that way. Other skeletons are now emerging out of the closet, though at least one, has seemingly been squashed – Kumar Vishwas’ alleged peccadillo involving a party volunteer. The domestic violence case against Somnath Bharati taken to the Delhi Commission for Women by his wife Lipika has only detracted from the party’s image. He is being made out as an insensitive male, given his midnight enterprise to detect misdeeds in a Delhi colony. Now comes another case of an alleged fake degree of another MLA, Vishesh Ravi. Ravi is passing off the issue as “an accidental error”. But those who have gone after these issues are unlikely to stop chewing the AAP to pulp. They can only be expected to intensify their political assault on a party which is not the usual “establishment type”, where a party takes the votes and then ignores voters. Anything is good enough to target because they – Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress - are fighting to uphold their own brand of politics. By battering at the AAP on a daily basis, where television news helps not only magnify the issues, but hype them beyond reason,the parties find an extremely helpful Lieutenant Governor in Najeeb Jung. That man, citing the letter of the law, is making even the utterly routine governance difficult for AAP which actually ought to functioning smoothly given its 67 MLAs in a house of 70. The idea is to cripple Kejriwal, and thus the AAP, by making it cringe in fear at any step lest the Lieutenant Governor step in. Instead of the AAP, it is the Lieutenant Governor who is making it impossible for the government to function, which may have its own constitutional implication. It is said that were Kejriwal to ask Delhi police to protect Lipika Bharati, because her husband can be perceived as ‘powerful’ due to his MLA status, the Lt. Governor could overrule it. No state administration can function if it is working in Delhi now. It is likely to come to a grinding halt sooner or later. It becomes easy for rival political parties to describe what was a ragtag army of social do-gooders - banding together as political activists, forming a party and then coming to power twice - as a party of scoundrels. If they show up AAP as worse than themselves, they expect to smell of roses. At this time, Kejriwal has to rise to the occasion. After all, he is the self-anointed soul of the party. He should make haste to stall this. Kejriwal should therefore seek change the public perception about his newly-acquired haughtiness by immediately acknowledging that he was wrong about Tomar, and that Yadav and Bhushan were right, and at least score a small win in public perception. He may not necessarily have to get the party to rescind its decision to throw them out, but show he is contrite. He had, after all, won the massive majority by apologising to Delhi voters for having resigned after 49 days in government in the first instance. People like to see humility in politicians, especially when it offers a contrast to the arrogance of the BJP leaders and Rahul Gandhi. One apology to Yadav and Bhushan is now in order. But eating a crow is not so easy. If Kejriwal were to marshal the moral courage to accept that things could have been otherwise had he accepted the duo’s recommendation, he would score high in public perception. Already, with East Delhi stinking because of a recalcitrant garbage cleaners’ strike, people are beginning to see it as a failure of Kejriwal. Soon, thanks to Jung, he will be seen as a failure on other counts too. He needs to avoid that.