The misguided fidelity of Arvind Kejriwal to one-upmanship

Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi Chief Minister and the de facto supreme leader of the Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP), is certainly one of the most remarkable political con of
contemporary times. From a Gandhi styled protestor with a muffler-cladding
caricature of a common man to an astute politician to a play-it-safe CM who
ideologically stands up for almost zilch; from a crusader for transparency to someone
who is as opaque as other Indian politicians, and from the promise of good
governance to a poor grip on administrative affairs, as highlighted most recently
during the Covid crisis, Kejriwal's path has been fractious. On one hand, he projects
himself as the only honest public figure who’s on a single-handed crusade against
corruption while his kin keep facing allegations time and again. He talked about
opening schools but we could only find new liquor shops thriving in Kejriwal’s Delhi.
His development model is as conspicuous and palpable as the water in Yamuna but
what is even more notable is his penchant for sponsoring advertisements and
campaigns – from print to television to digital – with state funds, of course. This
sense of vanity and conceit – obscuring the narcissistic badge attributed to him by
his arch rivals and political adversaries – has earmarked him as a name worth
mentioning, the "AdMan" of India.

On Saturday, December 25th, on the occasion of Christmas, CM Kejriwal should

have hogged the national headlines yet another time for yet another wrong reason:
spending taxpayer’s money on the front page advertisement of almost every
newspaper India has, across all states, spanning every established language and in
every edition. Arvind Kejriwal had planned to take on the role of Santa Claus on
Christmas Day, ensuring that media corporations have a field day with government
money being spent on advertisements and promotions. This comes from a man who
once remarked on April 7, 2014, "Which party paid how much money to which media
house for ads?" Do people have a right to know this? " But this doesn’t come as a
surprise when the media misses this Mr. Kejriwal as being one of the "media-
friendly" CMs! Perhaps, where everyone misses the woods for the trees, Mr. Kejriwal
never kept his propensity for advertising and self-love under wraps. In fact, he
asserted it publicly by including Leo Burnett’s adman KV Sridhar in his team back in
2014. His very exaltation from a common man (cm) to Delhi Chief Minister (CM) is a
political con worth vetting which a keen observer of foreign studies can identify with
the CIA model of Ramon Magsaysay, where a cause or struggle is created, a hero is
cherrypicked to be parachuted and launched to national and international fame. But
that is for some other day to discuss.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's photograph is nearly all-pervasive in the national

capital, from videos at Metro stations about the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) "sweeping
changes" in the education and health sectors to individual newspaper ads and
posters congratulating each of Delhi's 11 districts for launching work on roads and
drains. Discounting the amount spent by the Kejriwal government during the 49-day
government in 2013 and about one and a half months in 2014-15 owing to the
absence of data, the overall amount spent by the Kejriwal government could be
somewhat higher than the estimate of Rs 511.78 crore. While the expenditure in
2012-13 was Rs 11.18 crore, it increased to Rs 25.24 crore in 2013-14 and Rs 11.12
crore in 2014-15, with a dramatic increase to Rs 81.23 crore in 2015-16. However, in
the following fiscal year, the cost was reduced to Rs 67.25 crore, only to nearly
double in 2017-18, when it reached Rs 117.76 crore. However, in September 2016,
a Centre-appointed committee slammed the Aam Aadmi Party administration for
misusing exchequer funds. It had used public funds on advertisements in
contravention of Supreme Court norms and demanded that the party reimburse it.
However, it plummeted to Rs 45.54 crore in 2018-19, only to more than quadruple in
2019-20, reaching nearly Rs 200 crore. In the year 2020, the second greatest
amount spent on advertising after March was in July, when Rs 45.94 crore was
spent, followed by Rs 27.68 crore and Rs 19.64 crore in July and August,
respectively. According to another RTI response dated April 8, 2021, the Arvind
Kejriwal-led Delhi government spent Rs 150 crores on ads and promotions through
various media from January to March 2021. When the national capital's health
system began to tumble down amid the second wave of coronavirus, this amounted
to Rs 1.67 crore each day. Another RTI report indicated that the Aam Aadmi Party
(AAP) led Delhi government spent 64 crores on advertising and publicity between
April and June 2021, ensuing which Kejriwal was widely reprimanded for using
YouTube adverts to advertise and promote the AAP government's apparent
achievements. Furthermore, in the last two years, the Kejriwal government has spent
over a whopping Rs. 800 crore on advertising.

A publicly elected CM spending exchequer funds for personal glorification, electoral

gains, or for reasons unknown to us is nothing new. This has been a rampant feature
of the Indian polity across all the political parties of independent India, irrespective of
the ideologies they profess and assert. But CM Kejriwal pinned himself to be an
AAM AADMI, a common man who entered politics after openly forswearing and
renouncing any kind of political ambitions, that on national TV – later to chew back
his words to formally project himself as a beacon of hope to pave the way for the
country's educated, non-corrupt, and middle class to tread his path to enter politics
for good. Plus his own mentor, Anna Hazare, had to be ditched to pursue politics.
When the icon himself falls, we ought to democratically ponder and mull over the
following pointers :

1. What made him and his party turn into the very clique he loathed - the very ilk
that chooses to partisan politics over public welfare?

2. Instead of lavish advertisements, when Delhi was grappling with COVID, the
billions that they extravagantly expended could have been used for masks,
oxygen, or any kind of alms instead. In fact, none other than Congress
 questioned Kejriwal’s allegedly spending of Rs. 882 crores on running ads
during the Pandemic instead of arranging oxygen.

3. Banning Diwali celebrations just to celebrate Christmas exuberantly in all

forms of communication not only connotes Hinduphobia but also the polity of
placating the said minorities.

4. Punjab enjoys a profuse population of Christian converts, what are called

"crypto Christians," and Kejriwal eyes Punjab elections. Is Delhi tax payers'
money subtly earmarked for bolstering Punjab's election?

5. The billions disbursed for nothing but plain hubris and patting one’s own back
could have been pressed into Punjab for creating awareness against drug
menace among youth.

It’s time to ask the AdMan some tough questions and perhaps, repay by publishing
the truth on front pages (often called ‘jackets’ in the print media) to unmask the
muffler!

Yuvraj Pokharna is a Surat-based educator, columnist, and social activist. 

 
More pictures can be obtained from this tweet
https://twitter.com/vijaygajera/status/1474588455321542657?s=20