Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, during his testimony before the United States Congress, apologised several times for his social media company’s failures. After Zuckerberg’s “sorry”, Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hit out at the Congress saying party president Rahul Gandhi should apologise and promise not to manipulate voters.
While Prasad might have targeted Rahul Gandhi, back home Zuckerberg’s admission of guilt came quite close to the apology spree by Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal.
As far as apologising is concerned, Zuckerberg and Kejriwal seem to have at least one trait in common.
MARK ZUCKERBERG
During his testimony, the Facebook CEO conceded that his social media company must work harder at ensuring the tools it creates are used in “good and healthy” ways. “We have made a lot of mistakes in running the company,” he said.
While testifying before the US Senate after a firestorm erupted over Facebook’s alleged failure to protect its users’ data, Zuckerberg conceded that 2018 is an “important election year” in countries including India. He assured that Facebook would do everything to “protect the integrity” of the upcoming elections.
ARVIND KEJRIWAL
Zuckerberg may have apologised for the first time but Arvind Kejriwal has earned the dubious distinction of saying “sorry” several times and on more than one occasion.
The Delhi chief minister apologised perhaps for the first time in 2015. That year his government was sworn in for the second time. Kejriwal repeatedly and profusely apologised to the Delhi voters for having quit power in February 2014 in a huff.
He admitted his guilt and promised that he would never quit power ever again.
Last month, Kejriwal apologised to Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia for having levelled “unfounded” allegations related to involvement in drugs trade against the latter.
Subsequently, the AAP chief went on to say sorry to four other people – Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal, his son Amit Sibal and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Jaitley filed a Rs 10-crore defamation suit filed against Kejriwal and five others – Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai – of the AAP. They had alleged irregularities and financial bungling in the DDCA when Jaitley was its president between 1999 and 2013.
Senior AAP leaders said that Arvind Kejriwal was fighting more than 20 defamation cases filed against him in several parts of the country. The apologies were being made to get rid of such cases which were hampering the work of the Delhi government.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minisrter Manish Sisodia said they, by saying sorry, had not spared time for court but for themselves so that they could fight for people.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today removed Kumar Vishwas as party’s Rajasthan unit in-charge and appointed Deepak Bajpai to his place. Rajasthan will go to polls later this year.
Poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas today took a swipe at Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for sacking him from the post of the party’s Rajasthan unit in-charge. Kumar, who is known for his modern style of poetry which directly appeals to youngsters, tweeted a small portion of his television interview in which he targets AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal saying he has become a victim of Delhi Chief Minister’s political ambition.
Through poetry, Vishwas, in an apparent reference to Arvind Kejriwal, suggests that Kejriwal grabbed power promising a new kind of politics but failed to deliver. Further, he recounts the sacrifices of workers who had quit their jobs and joined Kejriwal’s movement to make it a revolution. In another tweet, Vishwas reminds Kejriwal of his decision to choose the Congress people over his own party leaders to send them to the Rajya Sabha. He accused Kejriwal of compromising with his own principles and said that people who were once on his radar are now his best friends.
The AAP leader’s poetic outburst comes after the party today sacked Vishwas as party’s Rajasthan unit in-charge. AAP leader Ashutosh announced the decision at a press conference and said that national treasurer Deepak Bajpai will be looking after the party affairs in the state where elections will be held later this year.
The relationship between Vishwas and Kejriwal had been rocky in the recent past. Vishwas was made in-charge of AAP’s Rajasthan unit last year as an attempt to pacify him after Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan accused him of working for the BJP. Vishwas had in past expressed his unhappiness with Kejriwal over many of his decisions including questioning the Army over surgical strike and apology to opposition leaders in defamation cases.
Vishwas’s removal comes in the backdrop of reports that he was not taking active part in strengthening the party in Rajasthan where people see it as an alternative to the BJP and Congress. Meanwhile, news agency IANS reported that the AAP is gearing up to form a third with Left parties in the state. Citing a Rajasthan unit party leader, it said that at least four to five meetings have already taken place between the leaders of AAP and Left parties and that talks are in the ‘advanced state’. It said that AAP may field candidates on the majority of the seats while the Left on 20-25 seats. The Rajasthan Assembly has 200 seats and goes to polls later this year.
Having dithered from contesting the Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections last year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is moving towards contesting the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Haryana as a serious contender. The Lok Sabha polls are scheduled one year down the line and the Haryana assembly polls would follow in a few months after that.
The party is putting its organisational structure in place besides chalking out a series of programmes that are to be undertaken in the months to come. Its national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had addressed a well-attended rally in Hisar last month that was followed by a successful roadshow in Rohtak-Bhiwani areas of the state.
Taking the momentum forward, the emphasis is now being put on strengthening the organisation at the booth level. It has been decided that Kejriwal himself would hold meetings after April 15 with booth level workers in different constituencies of the state. The decision was taken at a meeting held in Delhi some days back at Kejriwal’s residence in the presence of party’s Haryana in-charge Gopal Rai and state unit chief Naveen Jaihind.
AAP has already announced that it will be contesting both the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the state. According to Jaihind, teams have been constituted by the party to zero in on the potential candidates for the elections.
AAP has made the right move by taking the decision to contest the polls as Haryana provides a fertile ground for the party to expand its base outside Delhi and Punjab. To begin with the party can exploit the spill over effect of its governance in Delhi in areas that fall in the national capital region (NCR). It can play up what it has delivered in Delhi to the people in these areas. With a large number of its leaders in Delhi, including Kejriwal, having ancestral connect with Haryana, they can easily reach out to the people with emotive appeals.
But the most important is the opportunity that is available in the Jat heartland. AAP’s leadership appears to understand this very well and this is why Kejriwal’s rally and the subsequent road show were held in the Jat heartland. Observers say that after the Jat reservation agitation of 2016 and the subsequent developments, particularly the isolation of Jat community, the Jats are expected to vote one-sided this time.
With almost one fourth of the vote share the community is just sitting on the fence observing the developments in the different parties. With the Congress dilly-dallying on handing over the reins of the party to its most powerful Jat leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda with a pan Haryana presence, the situation remains fertile. The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the other party having Jat support has also been out of power for more than a decade. With the Jats unlikely to go with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), there is a window of opportunity available for AAP to make its presence in the Jat community.
However, AAP isn’t just targetting the Jat vote. It is also looking at wooing Bania voters who have tradionally been supporters of the BJP. Both Kejriwal and Jaihind happen to be Banias. Even in Delhi, the party has tried hard to woo BJP’s trader vote bank, by raising issues like sealing by MCD and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax
Leaving asides the politics of wooing various communities, Haryana today is offering a number of issues to the political parties to lap up. These issues include farm distress, unemployment and employment scams coming to light, women safety and security, the skewed sex ratio, the menace of cow vigilantes, targeting of minorities, atrocities on Dalits, the high number of rapes etc. These are issues that will form the narrative of both the forthcoming Lok Sabha and assembly polls in the state. There is a strong view that under the BJP regime led by Manohar Lal Khattar, the state is fast turning into another laboratory of Hindutva after Gujarat.
While Khattar and his party will try to hard sell their achievements on the ‘development’ plank, the fact remains that the government has unraveled whenever there has been trouble at hand, be it the violence at the Dera of godman Ram Pal, the violence during the Jat agitation or the mayhem by followers of Baba Ram Rahim in Panchkula.
AAP has started attacking the state government with Jaihind issuing a statement recently saying that Khattar regime is behaving like a big trader in the job market. He said that AAP had flagged the recent job scam that has been making headlines in the state two years ago.
It was on April 5 that Khattar’s Flying Squad had busted a gang of employees of Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) and other departments along with their brokers running a job-for-cash racket. They would take money from aspirants for getting them selected for government jobs. Jaihind has accused the government of doing nothing over the last two years and now taking credit by making a few clerks as scape goats.
Jaihind has leveled a series of allegations against the BJP regime saying that those people have been made members of HSSC to recruit school lecturers and taxation inspectors who are themselves incapable of becoming clerks. He has said that people have been misled about the selection criteria in context of evaluation of interviews and written exams.
He has also raised the demand that is being aired by other Opposition parties with regards to the action against HSSC chairman. The Opposition has been accusing the government of shielding the chairman by promising a probe in the Assembly. It has been demanding his dismissal and a probe by the CBI or other competent agency while pointing that an audio recording of his allegedly discussing graft payment is doing rounds in the social media.
AAP has also accused the government of doing nothing to check the leakage of question papers in a series of exams in the state and also of delaying the recruitment against various posts. He claims that question papers have been leaked on no less that 19 occasions during the Khattar regime.
The political affairs committee (PAC) of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) removed Kumar Vishwas as the party in-charge for the Rajasthan Assembly elections, and appointed its national treasurer Deepak Bajpai as his replacement.
“Bajpai will be the in-charge of the Assembly elections in Rajasthan. Vishwas was not able to devote time for election preparations due to his preoccupations,”AAP national spokesperson Ashutosh said on Wednesday. He said the AAP will contest the Assembly polls in Rajasthan — which are due later in 2018 — with full strength.
He added that Bajpai will prepare the list of candidates for the polls in the state and it would be finalised by the PAC.
The sudden development comes against the backdrop of an internal conflict between Vishwas—a senior leader and party founder—and the party’s top leadership.
Recently, Vishwas refused to follow other AAP leaders embroiled in a defamation suit against Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and tender an apology.
Jaitley filed the case in the Delhi High Court against six AAP leaders: Vishwas, Bajpai, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Raghav Chadha, Ashutosh, and Sanjay Singh.
While Kejriwal began issuing apologies for the remarks made by him against his political opponents in March, Vishwas said he would contest the defamation cases against him.
However, reports of a rift first emerged in June, 2017 when Vishwas skipped an iftaar party organised by the Delhi government. He also stayed away from campaigning in Punjab in 2017, and Rajasthan in January.
A controversial video further strained the relationship between Kejriwal and Vishwas, who were once close. “If, in Delhi, you form a government on the anti-corruption plank with the promise of freedom from corruption and fall silent and try to protect your own people when they come under the scanner, you will be questioned by people”, Vishwas said in the video.
While Kejriwal publicly gave Vishwas the thumbs up for the candid talk, a source told Firstpost that privately, the Delhi chief minister was extremely upset. Another source also revealed that when Vishwas continued with his “principled” talks with party workers, Kejriwal purportedly told him: “I will finish you but I will not turn you into a martyr”.
In January, AAP had also denied Vishwas a seat in Parliament.
