Swift Rise & Fall Of Magsaysay A Laureate-What an irony of fate indeed ! –Prof P K Sharma

A bird’s eye view of sequence of the chain of events of Arvind Kejriwal’s entire life so far in a flash back spells-Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur,Indian Revenue Service, Magsaysay Award,India Against Corruption Movement,Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) Genesis,National Convener AAP, Chief Minister Delhi,Incarceration and  Ultimate Humiliating Defeat from New Delhi Assembly Constituency and  Consequently of AAP too after three consecutive terms in power with a lot many  Union Govt and Lt.Governor Delhi riders.

Universal a line from Nobel laureate Leo Tolstoy’s short story “Ilyas”quite relevant here to quote,”Fortune turns like a wheel.” Arvind Kejriwal tale bears testimony to this fact even though he riding on his “transient popularity” a wave finally fell from grace.For this, he is himself to blame none else oblivious of this wonderful law of nature-the Time,Tide and Things never sail in the same flow, direction and fashion.

Never learning any lesson from his blemishes and blunders,he always strove  to soar high on his personal hi fi ambitions of reigning supreme, those very swiftly resulting in his political HAMARTIA leading to his “express fall”  too now.Tall but frivolous claims -“Won’t take security,official bungalow and car etc,  corruption free governance in Delhi”did not stand the test of time for long. Arvind Kejriwal,Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh remained behind the bars in alleged Delhi Liquor Policy Scam and Satinder Jain also in an alleged Money Laundering Case for long period thus their clean image and credibility nosediving quite dramatically in public eyes.

Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) sprang up of India Against Corruption movement against the wishes of Anna Hazare (who spearheaded this India Against Corruption drive) with the hype of offering a new and different type of politics and governance model.The movement infact a brain child of RSS and BJP, then in disguise pushed from behind the curtain ended up in a candid proxy war prompted by the then Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai’s presumptive losses, facilitating Modi to mount to power in Centre and then in States.

Ironically,Anna Hazare-the RSS-BJP’s tricky mask of wresting power from Dr Manmohan Singh led UPA Government in 2014 vanished from the scene soon after accomplishing the mascot act assigned to him by the RSS and BJP quite successfully then slipping silently into hibernation as if the war against the spectre of rampant corruption in India had been won once for all, afterwards remaining a blind and silent spectator to corrupt practices galore in India.The RSS-BJP power capturing game plan in guise of Anna Hazare worked wonders.

The year 2014 saw the rise of Narendra Modi in the Centre and Kejriwal in Delhi, courtesy- Anna Hazare. Both Modi and Kejriwal left no stone unturned right from the word go to sustain their political might and invincibility alike in a number of identical ways.Modi eased out instantly challengers to his insatiable quest for power in one go, the BJP stalwarts of the likes of Mr. Lal Krishan Advani,Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi, Mr.Yashwant Sinha, Mr.Arun Shourie relegating them to the Marg Darshak Mandal to be just its “show pieces.”

Kejriwal too did not lose even a second in the Modi style to show the door to his would be corrivals seeing them as threat to his long term power ambitions- jurist Prashant Bhushan, psephologist Yogendra Yadav,poet Kumar Vishwas, journo Ashutosh,Prof Anand Kumar so on and so forth to treat Aam Aadmi Party as his all time political fiefdom.

Like Modi, Kejriwal too followed politics of optics,tokenism,rhetorics and gimmicks to make the innocent masses to live in fools paradise most of the time.Kejriwal too relied on Modi like politics of narrative,perception and planks such as “in the past seventy years nothing worthwhile happened in India” thus harping on evolving a model of schools and mohalla clinics in Delhi on the pattern of Gujarat Model and the way Modi attempted to thrive on Smart City,Make in India,Jan Dhan Yojna, Swachh Bharat, Ujwala Yojna Start Up India-Skill India etc.

No denying the fact that both Modi and Kejriwal did not at all embrace”the NATION above everything spirit” to kick up their personal lofty office centric ambitions never ever refraining from hollow political mudslinging and sarcasms even during the dreadful  killer CORONA catastrophe staring the nation in its face thus fanning disharmonious an aura during their stints as India and Delhi state’s executive chiefs.

Amazingly,BJP and Congress dubbed Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party as corrupt party in wake of Delhi Liquor Policy Scam but Kejriwal kept on rebuffing it by terming his party as”Kattar Imaandaar Party”(Staunch Honest Party).Kejriwal by dint of propagating his freebies culture,  Delhi model of offering better Education and Health Care System tried to spread Aam Aadmi Party’s political wings in other states like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat,Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Goa but all in vain.It in the long run had to remain contented just with capturing power in Punjab and attaining national party status.

The 2024 Lok Sabha Polls and the 2025 Delhi Assembly Polls outcome depict both of them respectively as”the fallen angels of John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost”. Modi had to cobble majority to form  NDA government at Centre after BJP was reduced to 240 seats party hence thirty two below the simple majority mark, whereas  Kejriwal unfortunately was not left with that very option too of cobbling bid by the electorate of Delhi so much so he himself not succeeding in saving his own Delhi seat.By and large, their popularity graph did see a steep decline.

Both Modi and Kejriwal have never been fidel at all in the letter and spirit to their mentors, benefactors and leading lights. Keeping in view the poor plight of India on various fronts at present,both have awfully and miserably been found wanting in shaping afresh the destiny and idea of new India !

All in all, both Modi in the Centre and Kejriwal in Delhi stand now very badly exposed now making it very crystal clear that gone are the days of politics of both “building castles in the air” and “utopias” simply because of the fact that populace of the nation has come to terms with the stark realities prevalent on the ground with no evident signs of Modi and then Kejriwal’s renaissance in the offing !

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