Common enemies

When Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal first accused his predecessor Sheila Dikshit of financial irregularities in the preparation of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Bharatiya Jana-ta Party members privately applauded the newbie politician.

The BJP, which was in the Opposition then, believed it had found an ally in Mr Kejriwal as the party had also been gunning for Ms Dikshit and had even held up Parliament to demand action against all those charged with corruption in what was referred to as the CWG scam. But it’s a different story today. With Mr Kejriwal now accusing finance minister Arun Jaitley of corruption in the functioning of the Delhi and District Cricket Associa-tion during his tenure as its chief, Ms Dikshit is being viewed as a victim instead of a villain. Mr Jaitley and Ms Dikshit have become best buddies and are in constant touch with each other as they exchange notes about how Mr Kejriwal’s “hit-and-run” style of politics should be handled. Regretting that she had not dragged Mr Kejriwal to the courts, Ms Dikshit apparently told Mr Jaitley he had taken the right decision to file a defamation case against the Delhi chief minister and exhorted the minister “to take them to cleaners”. Mr Jaitley, on the other hand, is full of sympathy for Ms Dikshit, who he feels was unfairly targeted by Mr Kejriwal. In fact, he even refers to Ms Dikshit’s tenure as “Delhi’s golden age”.

Although Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s hostility towards each other is well-known, the Aam Aadmi Party leader privately admits that he shares a good working relationship with Union home minister Rajnath Singh. The senior BJP minister is, apparently, extremely civil in his interaction with Mr Kejriwal and is generally responsive to the Chief Minister’s proposals. It is, therefore, odd that Mr Kejriwal’s recent request for an appointment with Mr Singh has drawn a blank. Although the AAP leader apparently wants to meet the home minister to discuss the Delhi government’s odd-even policy, Mr Singh is said to be worried that Mr Kejriwal may use this opportunity to raise the DDCA case. Given the Delhi Chief Minister’s penchant for grabbing headlines, there is no guarantee how he will spin it before the media. Given his uneasy relationship with Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, Mr Singh obviously does not want to take any chances because any statement by Mr Kejriwal could add to the tensions between the two BJP leaders.

Former minister for external affairs Salman Khurshid finds himself in an embarrassing position after several newspapers and television channels ran reports quoting from his latest book, The Other Side of the Mountain with the damaging headline “Had Pranab Become PM, Congress Might Have Averted 2014 Loss”.

Furious with the media for quoting selectively from his book, Mr Khurshid points to his subsequent lines which say that not only was Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s decision to choose Manmohan Singh to lead the UPA-I widely welcomed, but was “also proved correct by the electoral verdict five years later, when we were returned to power with a greater majority”.  But Mr Khurshid has refrained from asking newspapers to publish a clarification and nor has he met Dr Singh to explain himself. The reason: Mr Khurshid fears that in the process of putting the record straight with the former Prime Minister, he might end up alienating Pranab Mukherjee. A senior Congress leader from Uttar Pradesh suggested a way out: mark the relevant paras and send a copy of the book to Dr Singh, but make sure Mr Mukherjee does not get one.

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist

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