0:02

This is the In Focus Podcast from

0:04

the Hindu. Hello

0:14

and welcome to the Hindu's In Focus

0:16

Podcast with me Amit Barua, your host

0:18

for this episode. Delhi's

0:21

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been

0:23

given interim bail to campaign in

0:25

the elections. After many

0:27

hearings, a two-judge bench of the

0:29

Supreme Court granted conditional bail to

0:31

Kejriwal on 10 May. Describing

0:34

the elections to the Lok Sabha as the

0:37

most significant event this year, the bench,

0:39

facing stiff resistance from the

0:41

centre, pointed out that Kejriwal

0:43

had no criminal antecedents nor

0:46

was he a threat to society. What

0:49

implications does Kejriwal's lease have smack

0:51

in the middle of the election

0:53

campaign? Will he impact elections

0:55

in the seven seats of Delhi or

0:57

even beyond? I am

0:59

joined by senior journalist and commentator

1:01

Javed Ansari to discuss the implications

1:03

of the Chief Minister making interim

1:06

bail. Welcome to the In

1:08

Focus Podcast Javed. Thank

1:10

you for having me. So Javed,

1:12

what do you think are the implications

1:15

of Mr Kejriwal being released bang in

1:17

the middle of the election campaign, albeit

1:19

with conditions by the Supreme Court on

1:21

10 May? Amit,

1:24

this is certainly bound to come

1:27

as a huge shot in the

1:29

arm for the Aam Adni Party

1:31

in particular and the India

1:33

Alliance in general. Mr

1:35

Kejriwal has portrayed

1:37

himself, managed to position

1:39

himself as a victim

1:42

of the central government's high-handedness

1:45

and if conventional wisdom and the past

1:47

is anything to go by, the

1:49

Indian electorate always tends to

1:51

sympathize with those it perceives

1:54

to be at the receiving end of

1:56

the centre or the state government's

1:58

high-handedness. Therefore, Mr.

2:01

K. Chiwal Kum has been released daily

2:03

a fortnight before daily goes to polls.

2:06

He's already hit the streets as

2:08

we speak. He will spearhead

2:10

their campaign and especially in Delhi where

2:12

they have a very active

2:14

and a very organized, organizational

2:17

network, they are bound to build

2:19

this politically. He will

2:21

portray himself as a victim as his

2:24

party is already doing so and then

2:26

try and generate as much political sympathy

2:28

as they can for the

2:30

Amadni party candidates and also

2:32

by extension to the India

2:35

Alliance. So, Chawid, before we

2:37

get into the politics of it all, what

2:40

would you say? I mean, you know, Mr. K.

2:42

Chiwal is the only one who's managed to come

2:44

out of jail. His ministerial colleagues are in jail.

2:47

You know, the Jharkhand, I mean,

2:49

the Heyman Soren, who was Chief

2:51

Minister of Jharkhand till recently, he's

2:53

in jail. So why has, you

2:55

think Mr. K. Chiwal managed it

2:57

while not either his colleagues

2:59

or even someone like Mr. Soren? Yeah,

3:03

it does. Prime face, he appears

3:05

that Mr. K. Chiwal, the

3:08

bench has, you know, Mr.

3:10

K. Chiwal has managed to get

3:12

a nod from the Supreme Court as far as

3:15

and others like Heyman Soren, etc., are

3:17

still languishing. But the last

3:19

has not been heard of the, in the

3:21

Heyman Soren case. His bail

3:24

is posted for hearing day after tomorrow,

3:26

that is on Monday. And

3:28

who knows, going forward,

3:30

we might see that Heyman Soren might also come

3:32

out. But because

3:34

the courts, you know, the courts,

3:37

once you take a decision, once you

3:40

announce a judgment, it becomes a precedent.

3:43

This case will also become a precedent. Not

3:46

just for Mr. Heyman Soren,

3:48

but a lot of other political prisoners

3:50

who are languishing, who will cite this

3:52

as an example to try and get

3:55

permission from the courts to go out and campaign.

3:58

So Jharkhand, what is your sense? I mean,

4:00

what impact we know that in a

4:03

sense, the only real fresh alliance in

4:05

the, you know, in the India grouping,

4:07

of course, they have other alliances everywhere.

4:10

But Delhi is in a sense a

4:12

new alliance for both the Amadhi party

4:14

and the Congress, which have been a

4:16

daggers drawn. What do

4:19

you think was going to be the impact

4:21

in Delhi of Mr. Kejriwal's release? Look,

4:25

now the BJP in the last

4:27

two general elections in 2014 and 2019 swept Delhi,

4:29

they won 7-0 with

4:34

the Congress and the Amadhi

4:36

party coming together that it

4:39

forms a, at least

4:41

on paper, it forms a

4:44

strong bulwark against the

4:46

BJP. This time now the BJP has

4:48

a fight on its hand and

4:50

with Mr. Kejriwal being released,

4:53

they are going to enter

4:55

into it with renewed

4:57

vigor. For one, it

4:59

will help stop

5:01

the division of the anti BJP votes

5:04

and two, now they have a

5:07

local speaker, a very dirty

5:09

and rigorous campaigner in Mr.

5:11

Kejriwal. It is now up

5:13

to the political management skills of both

5:15

the Amadhi party and the Congress party

5:18

in Delhi and the India alliance in

5:20

general on how they encash

5:22

it or how they take this to the people. Because

5:26

the alliance is not just limited to Delhi,

5:28

although in Delhi, the effect will be seen

5:30

a lot more than the rest of the

5:32

country because they also have an alliance in

5:35

Gujarat, they also have an alliance

5:37

in Goa and in

5:39

Haryana and the Congress

5:42

and the Amadhi party are at

5:44

loggerheads, they are fighting each other

5:46

in Punjab. So, the

5:49

real significance of the real

5:51

impact of this alliance will

5:54

be felt in Delhi, in

5:56

the seven Lok Sabha seats of Delhi. So,

5:59

Javed, you know tell us there are

6:01

a lot of you've been you know you covered

6:03

the Congress party for a long time you

6:05

you were covering the Congress party for the Hindu

6:07

as well for many years from

6:10

whatever one sees there are elements within

6:12

the Congress who are not happy with

6:14

this alliance with the Amadhi party and

6:17

of course we've had even you

6:19

know Delhi Congress chief Arvind Singh

6:21

lovely quit and then joined the

6:23

BJP what is your sense I

6:25

mean will the carders on the

6:27

ground of the Congress and Amadhi

6:29

party actually managed to work together

6:33

well it's it's not a

6:35

marriage made in heaven but

6:37

it's certainly out of compulsion

6:40

and they have no other choice who

6:42

are the people who are opposed to an

6:44

alliance with the Amadhi party

6:47

mr. Sandeep Dixit and mr. lovely

6:49

Arvind Singh lovely who has now

6:52

gone back to the BJP they

6:54

were amongst the first to reach mr.

6:56

Kajwa's residence the day he was being

6:59

arrested and that and they said no

7:01

we are here we stand shoulder to shoulder with our

7:03

allies the reason that they are

7:06

now expressing reservations about this alliances because

7:08

neither of them have got a ticket

7:10

if mr. Sandeep Dixit had been fielded from

7:13

from say Chandichok or

7:15

from northeast Delhi he would have been

7:17

quite happy everything would have been ankydory

7:19

as far as the alliances can tell

7:21

the same applies to mr. lovely because

7:24

their own ambitions have been profit so

7:26

that they are now giving it this

7:28

great idea trying to give it a

7:30

great ideological window dressing which is which

7:32

you know people who know politics see

7:34

see through all this so while some

7:36

of the leaders may or may not

7:39

come together I think the coming

7:42

together of the world base of these

7:44

two alliances will

7:46

be will happen to a fairly large

7:48

extent and if that happens then it

7:50

will reflect in the final result

7:52

of in the seven looks of our seats

7:54

in Delhi. Javed you

7:56

know I also want to ask you about

7:59

mr. Kajriwal himself. His has

8:01

been a long journey in politics in

8:03

a short while. He

8:05

was a spirit of the anti-corruption movement,

8:07

which in a sense brought down the

8:10

UPA too. He

8:12

has now been Chief Minister three times. And

8:16

he has a persona, and

8:18

he has national ambitions. He's not

8:20

a party which is confined to Delhi. So

8:22

he's not a regional force in that sense.

8:24

He has national ambitions. Do

8:27

you think that this attack on

8:29

the AAP, in a sense, putting

8:31

his ministers, his leaders behind bars

8:33

and now implicating him in this

8:36

excise scandal, is this actually going

8:38

to lead to building

8:40

a bigger stage here for Mr.

8:42

Kejriwal? Again, a

8:44

lot will depend on how he goes forward, because

8:47

Mr. Kejriwal has in the past, if you

8:50

recall, he started off with the help of the beat

8:52

JP. That

8:54

so-called Andolan against corruption had

8:57

both open and tacit support from

8:59

the BJP. Thereafter

9:02

he started, he started carving out

9:04

a place for himself as a

9:06

separate entity. In the

9:09

middle, he had positioned himself

9:11

as a right of centre alternative to

9:13

the BJP. But he now appears to

9:15

have realized that if people

9:17

want to go for the right of

9:19

centre, they will go to the original

9:21

rather than to the wannabe. So he's

9:23

now formed the moment, decided to hitch

9:27

himself to the bandwagon of the India Alliance. And

9:31

based on the result, he will then take it to

9:33

because, you know, and then

9:35

this business of being targeted, so many

9:37

ministers being in jail, this

9:39

is the central, this is come as

9:41

a temporary setback. He had positioned himself

9:44

as a crusader against

9:46

corruption. So till he finally

9:48

gets scared of that, and his ministers

9:50

get scared of that, there will be a

9:52

talking point against him. Some of

9:54

that sheen has worn off, but what

9:57

does work in his favour is the fact, is

9:59

the this populist scheme, especially in

10:01

Delhi. Free

10:05

electricity, free water, his

10:07

Mahala clinics, his model

10:09

schools. All that goes down very

10:12

well with the lower middle class

10:14

and the poor. My

10:18

old maid was telling me just the

10:20

day before I was watching television, there

10:22

was some story on Tijvaj. She turned

10:24

around and told me, he said, you

10:27

know the reason why they put him in

10:29

jail is because he was given free water

10:31

and free electricity. So, he has struck a

10:33

chord with a certain section, but a

10:36

lot will depend on his political management

10:38

skills on how he goes forward, on

10:41

the direction that his politics takes.

10:43

This adversity

10:45

has presented him with an opportunity.

10:52

Now, much will depend on

10:54

how he incashes it. And

10:56

Tijvaj, he is not a regional force. He

10:59

has national ambitions. How do you think all

11:01

these corruption cases, this being jail, you made

11:03

a reference to it earlier as well. How

11:05

do you think he's going to impact his

11:08

national ambitions? He

11:11

has certainly been on national ambitions. He

11:13

wants to be seen as the

11:16

alternative to the BJP, but

11:19

he has traveled some distance here, but

11:21

he has a much longer

11:23

distance to travel at the

11:25

national level before he can be seen as a

11:27

serious challenger or a viable alternative

11:30

to the BJP. These

11:32

are temporary setbacks that his party

11:34

has had to face. This

11:37

is actually the first real test and

11:40

much will depend on how they

11:42

emerge out of this because it

11:45

often happens within times

11:47

of adversity. People jump ship. Much

11:49

is being made out of the Raghav

11:53

Chaddai's conspicuous by his absence in the

11:55

last two couple of months. All that

11:57

has been going on in Delhi earlier.

12:00

was one of the prominent faces in the

12:02

campaign. So, maybe there will be some decisions,

12:04

maybe there will be, you

12:07

know, some people may decide to just

12:09

call it a day, but it

12:11

would depend on their staying power, on their

12:13

stamina and their ability to move on. On

12:16

the other side, you have the likes of Sanjay Singh, etcetera,

12:20

dottie fighters, campaigners who

12:22

are vigorously standing

12:26

by his side and who are campaigning.

12:29

For now, Mr. K.

12:32

Jeeval appears to have realized that

12:34

first they must ride out the

12:36

storm, ride out the sun slot from the

12:38

BJP and stand up with the Indian Alliance

12:40

and then take things from there. Right.

12:44

Chavanah, I also want to ask you,

12:46

you know, why is the BJP specifically

12:50

targeting the Ahmaadhi party? Is

12:52

it because Mr. K. Jeeval also makes

12:54

an appeal to religion? You know,

12:57

he has positioned himself in different ways

12:59

in his, you know, political journey. So

13:01

why specifically hit out at K. Jeeval?

13:03

Because if you remember, the last time

13:05

he was elected, you know, one of

13:07

the first ports of call, what he

13:09

made was to meet the prime minister,

13:11

he met the home minister. So it

13:13

seemed that they were trying to mend

13:15

fences for a period. But however,

13:18

all that fell through. So why do you think the

13:20

BJP is really going after the Ahmaadhi party

13:22

in a sense? One,

13:24

because K. Jeeval has positioned his party

13:26

as a right wing alternative to the

13:29

BJP. So he

13:31

largely, for a

13:33

long time, he flirted with that idea. He

13:36

walked some distance, especially he was

13:39

his role during or his inaction

13:43

during the riots in Delhi and in

13:45

his, you know, he was he was

13:48

missing an action, his party was missing an action.

13:50

When the Delhi riots was happening, he gave, he

13:52

gave the parents for the persecution of a

13:55

lot of people. However, he appears

13:57

to have now realized the future.

14:00

The other

14:02

reason is that his clean

14:04

image till now Mr. Kajiwal

14:07

is amongst the very few opposition

14:10

rudders who do not who does not

14:12

have a case either real

14:14

or trumped up against him. It is

14:16

only now last month that he

14:18

was about 2 months ago when he was

14:21

put in jail on these charges on the

14:23

liquor scam. So he

14:25

enjoyed a relatively clean image and

14:28

the BJP and its political managers wanted

14:30

to take some of, wanted

14:33

to tarnish that image, punch a

14:35

hole in that carefully crafted

14:37

image of Kajiwal. And because

14:39

the Prime Minister would have

14:41

the world believe that he is the

14:44

only clean politician in India and everybody

14:46

is corrupt and they tried

14:49

to target Kajiwal much

14:51

the same way as they tried

14:53

to target Sondha Gandhi Rahul and

14:55

a host of opposition leaders. So

14:59

Javed tell us, you know we are

15:01

now smack in the middle of the

15:03

elections and you know alliances as you

15:05

pointed out were key. So

15:07

what is your sense of some

15:09

of the major alliances for India?

15:11

How are they working out especially

15:13

in Maharashtra and in Bihar? How

15:16

would you assess the health of these alliances?

15:20

Look, Maharashtra is despite all that

15:22

has happened, despite

15:24

the fact that the B.S. split

15:27

the Shiv Sena, despite

15:29

the fact that the section of the

15:31

Congress leadership yet the Maha Adari alliance

15:33

is giving the BJP Shiv Sena alliance

15:35

a run from its money. Anecdotal

15:39

evidence on all the reports

15:41

coming in from the ground suggests that the

15:44

battle has been joined in Maharashtra. In

15:47

the last election, the Sena and the

15:49

BJP were together and they just ran away

15:51

with that election. That was the runaway

15:54

victory. That doesn't our,

15:56

I cannot forecast

15:58

A number but one can see. Is it.

16:01

A. Battle don't want to happen. It's going to be a

16:03

much cause of it in the hot. Nitish.

16:05

Kumar as I get done of the flop and gone

16:07

back to the. To. The Bjp, But.

16:10

All. My. Reports indicate that

16:12

the Bjp. Nitish Kumar

16:14

alliance will be. The.

16:16

Grill when a large number of seats for

16:18

not be last time the in the Alliance

16:20

off you peer just one one seat and

16:23

thirty nine seats went to the dish come

16:25

out and the Bjp. This. Time around.

16:27

That said, the new Not going to happen.

16:29

That. It's reports of to be believe. That.

16:33

The. Opposition that to be dollars wouldn't get

16:36

anywhere between it the currency check. So.

16:38

That will be a. That. Will be

16:40

done that prepared for a significant dent.

16:43

In. The and the A Study. He.

16:45

Joined up you don't them

16:47

for this is really important.

16:49

You know in in this

16:51

opposition campaign as Btp stitched

16:53

up for you know some

16:55

is alliances for itself but

16:57

what is your said Simon

16:59

One of the main criticisms

17:01

against the opposition India alliances

17:03

that they don't have a

17:05

prime ministerial candidate. In contrast

17:07

you have Mr. Modi, a

17:09

strong leader, the prime minister

17:11

for or to dumpsters. You

17:13

may differ on. His assessments but

17:16

he's right. Updated friends and he's the

17:18

leader of the Bgp it and is

17:20

no chance to him. So what

17:22

would you see easy and yeah lines

17:24

are handicapped by the fact that they

17:26

don't have a candidate for the prime

17:28

minister's? Of

17:30

the reason why the index alleged doesn't have a

17:32

plan has to be candidate is. Because

17:34

they couldn't agree on what. However,

17:38

This. Unwittingly is also has been

17:40

day and the other as because.

17:43

The Bjp unblemished a movie to

17:45

no longer posits this. Contest.

17:47

As a binary between Black Minister Modi

17:49

and Round Audio Prime Minister Modi and

17:52

or enter anybody as. There.

17:54

Is there is no primary targets A Hooters.

17:56

The plan is to target. He's.

17:58

having put there is no overarching national

18:00

issue on which the Pranada

18:03

BJP can take this election.

18:06

Now, it's a lot like

18:08

local elections happening. So, somewhere

18:10

it's paper leak, elsewhere it's

18:13

in most places it's unemployment,

18:15

price rise, farmers distress,

18:17

etc. etc. There

18:21

are stray animals in Jupi,

18:23

paper leaking, oh no, so

18:25

local issues, the

18:27

Prime Minister is having to

18:29

battle and answer local issues.

18:31

And for the first time,

18:33

it's not the BJP, it's not the Prime

18:35

Minister who is setting the agenda but it's the

18:37

other side and he's having to do all the

18:40

answering and he's not doing a great job of

18:42

it. Certainly, there is a

18:44

lot to be said, the India

18:46

alliance is not a perfect one.

18:49

I get the feeling that they were not

18:51

convinced after they lost the state elections, the

18:53

last round of state elections, they

18:56

appear to have lost a lot of momentum, they

18:58

were not convinced that they'd be able to, that

19:01

they have a fighting chance, that they have a

19:03

chance of making a match of this elections.

19:05

And that's why, you know, that spirit

19:08

of give and take, that spirit of

19:10

walking the extra distance to accommodate each

19:12

other, that chemistry was missing.

19:15

Now suddenly even they see, just in

19:17

the government and the Prime

19:19

Minister and his political managers appear

19:21

to be surprised. So as the

19:23

opposite of this, they now

19:25

realize that there is something happening on the

19:28

ground and perhaps there

19:30

is something there worth

19:32

fighting for. You know, had they

19:34

worked out, they see their influence in a much

19:36

better fashion. Things,

19:38

this fight would have been a lot closer. Politics

19:41

at the end of the day, Amithya and I have both been

19:43

in the field for a long time. Coalition

19:46

politics is all about managing contradictions.

19:50

The India Alliance ought to have done a

19:52

better job of it. Perhaps

19:54

in say, in a state like

19:57

West Bengal, they ought to

19:59

have been fighting together at least the

20:02

Congress and the context

20:18

Contrary of words dont like

20:20

to say that only the action is and

20:23

theCrafty action is not was

20:25

shown. All

20:30

I am saying for me is that Both

20:36

Analytics will create Not only an

20:38

individual opinion but a issue

20:40

of this Colour substantial

20:44

yellow colour and

20:47

several rounds of elections. Thank

20:50

you very much Javed Ansari Senior

20:52

journalist and commentator former political writer

20:54

for the Hindu joining us for

20:56

the In Focus Podcast. Thank

20:59

you for having me on. Thank you. In

21:05

Focus will be back soon with analysis

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