AAP Already A Lost Cause | Lack of Vision & Governance Experience Spell Doom
Prashant Bhushan, senior leader of Aam Admi Party (AAP), has stirred a hornets nest by seeking a plebiscite on the issue of Kashmir. This highly controversial comment, which is no doubt condemnable, clearly brings to fore the lack of imagination and any kind of views for a party planning to go national. In this blog post we will explore this issue in depth apart from the power issue and the controversial background of some of the AAP inner core leaders along with those of Kejriwal.
Prashant Bhushan's controversial commentary - an expose on the greater design
Prashant Bhushan has been known to defend terrorists and particularly in the Batlahouse Encounter where the terrorists have been already sentenced, he continues to maintain that they are innocent. Now making such a statement and that too coming from a champion of purity and righteousness & member of AAP is just not expected. Questions arise as to whether to Prashant Bhushan made this deliberate statement to promote his own vested economic interests.
Althugh Arvind Kejriwal has distanced himself from this statement and Prashant Bhushan has retracted his statement on the same, the latter on many occasions in the past has held the same firm view (http://goo.gl/tOBonP and http://goo.gl/9qrU3c ). This double speak further raises questions of whether the AAP is just another dose of more of Congress where someone says one thing and the Party HIgh Command says something else.
The excuse that AAP is a young party will just not wash cause we are talking about the issue of national security. And if the AAP which has national ambitions does not show maturity in voicing their views that concern national security then they should grow up politically and then think of representing the Indian people in the Lok Sabha.
Rather peculiar is the position of Prashant Bhushan echoing the indifference practiced by the UPA during the 50+ border penetration attempts on the LOC with Pakistan during the last one year and inroads by the Chinese into Indian territory on many an occasion. The Abdullah's, who are distanced relatives of the Nehru dynasty too have been attempting to have the army removed from Kashmir. Is the AAP a clandestine supporter of the greater design for compromising India's security? The AAP in many a political quarters is believed to be the B team of the Gandhi family.
A referendum on withdrawing the Army from the state of Kashmir is not only political suicide but foolish and the AAP has shown no foresight in refraining from making such irresponsible statements.
A hypothetical situation where the army is withdrawn from Kashmir and the latter is allowed to secede from the Union of India will only lead to more trouble along the states that border China and the North Eastern India. This will further compromise India's water security as the molten glaciers feed the perennial rivers of Northern India. (And Pakistan has fought three wars with India only to gain control of these very water bodies).
So Prashant Bhushan while a righteous stand on the issue of corruption is laudable, questions will be raised as to your loyalty to the nation. Saying you were quoted out of context is a cliched excuse and you would do well to expand your views in public on whether you support the Jihadi's cause or are vehemently against.
Core AAP members have direct linkages with the Gandhi family and Congress
AAP core members have direct linkages to the Gandhi family and raises doubts as to the true design of this party. Or are they simply toeing the line of American foreign policy. After all there are strong rumours of AAP having received funding from the Ford Foundation and hence they are dutifully bound to promote the American agenda.
To understand the issue of AAP being a close political aide of the Congress we need to take a look the political antecedents of the core team members. (This blogpost does a great job of establishing AAP links to the Gandhi family). Arvind Kejriwal has confessed to Aruna Roy being his mentor. Aruna Roy is a member of the extra constitional body National Advisory Council (NAC) of which Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson. Surprisingly both Arvind Kejriwal and his wife Sunita Kejriwal during their 10 year tenure as IAS Officers were both never transferred out of Delhi purely on representations of Sonia Gandhi. Now why would Sonia Gandhi recommend a small time officer to be stayed in Delhi? Something just does not smell right!
Another AAP core member Yogendra Yadav was Rahul Gandhi's advisor during the 2009 general elections. He later was part of the NAC and all members of the NAC are hand picked personally by Sonia Gandhi.
So is it entirely possible that these are mere coincidences? And is it also mere coincidence that a party that refused to take support from the Congress has come to power purely on the patronage of the latter. How can the Congress party which is going all out to attack Modi for his Congress-hate speeches provide support to AAP which has been carrying out a virtriolic attack against them. The inconsistency in action against two similar events raises suspicions that AAP and the Congress are in cohorts.
Further, the leftist and social populist policies of AAP are also Nehruvian and one wonders, what if not a clone of the Congress is AAP.
AAP's populist policies not only imprudent but a bad example of fiscal profligacy
Subsidies and populist policies never ever benefit the common man. And the reduction in the tariff of water and electricity is only going to leave a gargantuan hole in the finances of the Delhi State. And when the shit hits the ceiling it would only mean more burden on the common man.
While these populist measures have caught the fancy of the people of Delhi and India at large, it has panic written over the faces of all political parties. In an effort to water down the AAP effect and ape their style many state governments are looking at options of reducing power tariffs. This is going to have a telling effect on the finances of all these states resorting to populism and eventually India's overall finances. Populism never pays and only ends badly.
AAP the way they executed their election campaign and that too winning the elections in the state of Delhi, everyone thought that at last India had found a pragmatic and corruption free alternative. However to highlight their shallow understanding of the power situation prevalent in the capital state we need to table issues facing the Delhi State Electricity Board.
Power consumption in the National Capital varies from 3000 -5000 MW. This great intra day fluctuations cannot be evened out as Delhi does not have much manufacturing activity which uses the power in the night.
To provide uninterrupted power to Delhites, the discoms have to resort to purchase of costly power and that too over a period of 24 hours. So during nights when the load demand drops this power needs to be sold to other consumption centres. And the states incur losses in their trading activities during the night. These trading losses need to be considered while deciding the tariff structure.
The accumulated losses of the past years and the returns that the discoms need for the investments that they make are also to be considered while calculating the tariffs.
Cost of power generation has risen substantially since the discoms were privatised in 2002 and while the distribution losses have been more than halved from the ~50% levels, more needs to be done.
Now when Sheila Dixit raised power tariffs by a steep 24% AAP was quick to point out that this was against the recommendation of the DERC at that point in time. They also raised issues of
bringing the significant non-tariff payers like the Indira Gandhi Internation Airport (IGI) and the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) to pay, and
getting the discoms books audited by the CAG for gold plating the cost of their assets to which returns are linked.
In their election manifesto they never spoke of giving subsidies which they adopted with much fan fare. It is to their credit that the CAG audit has been announced in record time and they have threatened to cancel licences of discoms if the latter were to refuse the same. The timeline in which this announcement has been made is laudable.
However their rush to announce the populist measure of slashing tariffs by 50% and that too only for certain sections of society was a clear deviation from their manifesto of relief for one and all. This too my mind is a betrayal of the people who voted for AAP.
Further they should have waited for the CAG audit report to come in and taken stock of the AT&C losses and the arrears of the IGI and DJB. Once the observations made were noted a well thought out strategy should have been initiated to mitigate the tariffs. However they acted in a very immature manner in announcing the dole outs.
Having won the election with a seat count far in excess of his wildest imagination and unexpectedly finding himself the CM, Kejriwal was in a vulnerable position as the Congress government which had extended outside support was not giving his party enough time to act in a methodical manner. With a short time frame and national political opportunities suddenly looming large the temptation was too much to resist and AAP bit the bullet of acting first and then analyzing.
AAP would do well to learn from the Gujarat Model (instead of berating Modi) on electricity tariffs and the smart grid concept which is to be implemented in the state. The folly - a 50% cut in the power tariff - and the finances of the state screwed up forever. In my opinion Arvind Kejriwal would have risen taller had he refrained from taking the populist measure and stood up to the Congress on the time line and instead enacted a methodical solution to the electricity issue without compromising on fiscal prudence.
In my opinion the austerity measures undertaken with respect to personal security and blindly indulging in populism is akin to saving nickels while squandering the pounds.
The haste shown in enacting the populist policies is clearly indicative of the the power hungry party. So what is the difference between AAP on the one hand and the BJP and Congress (that Kejriwal so clearly enjoys criticising) on the other.
Winning the elections and ruling a nation are two entirely different activities. Lack of vision on a number of issues plaguing the country is indeed alarming (and the content for another blogpost) and does not bode well if AAP is to play a major role in politics at a national level.
The single issue of corruption while striking a chord with the frustrated people of India might have worked in bringing popularity to AAP. But having no views on development and India's problems only makes AAP seem to be a coterie of opportunists with no national agenda. Seems like Arvind Kejriwal and Co. are in a tearing hurry to occupy the Lok Sabha. If AAP does not get its act together and quickly evovle into a mature outfit, it would not be too early to say that India's Arab Spring failed even before it started. Then would it not be better to elect Narendra Modi led BJP. Atleast our future would be in tried, tested and successful hands. Hands that deliver.
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