Kejriwal’s full circle

NEW DELHI: The arrest late Thursday of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the liquor scam case was long anticipated and should surprise no one. The gun had been cocked for this event ever since the detention of deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia by the CBI in February last year. He and two more of Kejriwal’s lieutenants continue to be incarcerated without bail while their investigators have made zero progress in the cases against them. Last week, when Telangana legislator K Kavitha, daughter of Bharata Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate for involvement in the liquor scam case, it was predictable that Kejriwal would be taken in next. After allowing the Delhi Chief Minister to dodge nine summonses, investigators moved in on him late Thursday night after a futile search of his residence in the capital, during which they found a princely sum of Rs 70,000 in cash.

Even a child can guess that this arrest is a politically motivated act. Coming within a week of the beginning of the election season—with the Model Code of Conduct in force—it is obviously aimed at preventing any participation by Kejriwal in the ensuing campaign. As a key leader in the INDIA alliance, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) boss was expected to be a major influence on the swing vote in Haryana, Punjab, Noida, Gujarat, and Goa in addition to his towering presence in the National Capital Region.

His arrest is only the latest event in the months-long assault by the BJP on the opposition. While the seduction of the pathetic Nitish Kumar in Bihar and the hapless Ashok Chavan in Maharashtra illustrate the Machiavellianism typical of the BJP, the spiriting away of Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal in western UP, the coup against the Hemant Soren government in Jharkhand and the frantic alliances made with the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh and the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha attest to the BJP’s anxiety to buy insurance in case its own numbers fall short.

The latest arrests of Kejriwal and Kavitha are not acts of confidence but point to panic in the BJP—which is surprising for a party that speaks breezily of bagging more than 400 seats in the coming election. Seen in the wider context of its shameful corruption in the electoral bonds scam and the shameless use of Income Tax proceedings against the Congress, it appears as if the BJP is in a blue funk right now. With every such action the Prime Minister’s boastful words of ‘abki baar 400 paar’ sound hollower and hollower.

Whatever its impact on the coming election, this episode is not without its irony for Kejriwal. Today he is playing the martyr as the people of Delhi stand in support of him against the dictatorial ways of the BJP. Fourteen years ago, in secret collaboration with the very same party and its shadow operatives, he used the people’s support to destroy the credibility of the then ruling alliance that he is now in an alliance with. In trying to use Anna Hazare’s standing as a Gandhian, he allowed himself to become an instrument of the Sangh Parivar and thus helped to pave the way for the current regime in New Delhi. Kejriwal is no less Machiavellian than his past masters.