DDCA row: With Jaitley as target, Kejriwal won’t let a juicy political story disappear

Arvind Kejriwal claims that a Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) official asked the wife of a senior journalist to come to his place “at night” and have her son selected for a junior level Delhi cricketing team.

The sex twist, coming in the midst of Kejriwal and his Aam Admi Party’s open war against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, couldn’t have been an off-the-cuff remark from the Delhi chief minister. In his interview with NDTV, Kejriwal didn’t substantiate it, nor did he say when this incident transpired, except mentioning that the journalist concerned was ready to depose before the one-man Commission of Inquiry formed by his government to probe the DDCA controversy. The Commission is headed by senior advocate Gopal Subramanium.

Since the charge has been made publicly by a person holding an utmost responsible position, one would assume that this is true. But was that an isolated incident, or are such practices otherwise prevalent in the selection process? What has this charge to do with Jaitley, or why bring it up when all AAP guns are directed towards Jaitley? It is clear that AAP’s interest is not cricket. Through the attack on Jaitley, Kejriwal is aiming at a much bigger and higher goal.

An explicit demand for physical gratification for selection was a fit case to be reported to the Delhi Police. A text message of this kind was enough to send that DDCA official behind the bars, at least that’s what the common knowledge of law of the land would suggest. But the said journalist chose to call up Kejriwal and tell him about the incident. This is an individual discretion as to how he responds to a given situation. An astute politician, Kejriwal took that complaint not to any law enforcing agency but straight to a prime national news channel, thereby placing it in the public domain, leaving it open for conjecture.

“A very senior journalist called me on the phone who is a very good friend of yours…His son plays cricket. He told me… he got a call that his son was selected. In the evening, when the list came, his name was not there. Can you believe that the next day, the journalist’s wife got an SMS saying that she should come to my (official’s) place at night, her son’s selection will be done”, he said in an interview to NDTV’s Barkha Dutt.

There is a clear pattern to what Kejriwal, his lieutenants in his party and the government are speaking since the evening of 15 December, the day his principal secretary, Rajendra Kumar’s office was raided in the Delhi secretariat. By now, they realise that this has become the most politically juicy story in the closing days of 2015 and the AAP leadership has been coming out with a headline a day to feed it.

A former civil servant and second time chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal knows best whether the Delhi government, without the approval of the Lieutenant Governor, was competent to form a commission of inquiry. He would also know whether a senior advocate, who otherwise has been giving him and his government legal advice, perhaps for a fee, on various matters relating to the government and whose opinion is liberally quoted by AAP to counter its adversaries, should head a commission of inquiry appointed by him. Kejriwal knows best on whether a special session of the assembly should be convened to berate the prime minister and the union finance minister, or whether an assembly ever resolves to appoint a one-man inquiry committee to probe a cricketing matter.

Corruption in the state’s cricketing body suddenly becomes a national security issue and the chairman of Delhi government’s one-man inquiry commission (yet to be notified) writes to the National Security Adviser to give him 15 best officers of CBI, IB and Delhi Police. A seasoned lawyer, Subramanium would know that the issue is beyond the purview of the NSA and he had no business to seek sleuths from central government to probe whatever he has to be probe.

But then, these developments make big news and keep DDCA/Jaitley in the news cycle. Kejriwal and AAP leadership are very well aware of legal and technical points in the case and Delhi government’s competence to investigate the case in the manner in which they want to.

The Centre and LG’s rejection of the Commission of Inquiry would make Kejriwal cry hoarse yet again. His script on Jaitley/DDCA had been drawn long ago, only the pages are unfolding now.