The AAP-led Delhi government’s endeavour to clean up the Capital’s political system has started showing first signs of impact. If the CM Arvind Kejriwal’s letter to president Pranab Mukherjee – advising that action should be taken against former chief minister Sheila Dikshit for her role in alleged irregularities in regularisation of unauthorised colonies – is anything to go by, it’s first of all an indication that the current regime is serious about tackling corruption. The opposition’s claim that AAP’s latest act is a publicity stunt aimed at garnering kudos from the aam aadmi isn’t exactly accurate given that the home ministry has been sitting on several files related to corruption and has been either too reluctant or too slow to do anything about them. The move by Kejriwal comes as a reply to a letter in which the president had asked for Delhi government’s comments on the Lokayukta report, that stated that provisional certificates for regularisation of unauthorised colonies were issued by the Dikshit government to gain political traction in a decidedly delicate pre-poll scenario. In this light, AAP’s letter to the president might precipitate some action on the part of the Centre.
In addition to demanding that licences or erring discoms, particularly the Anil Ambani-owned BSES companies, be scrapped in the wake of their non-payment of dues to the Centre-owned power generating companies like NTPC, the AAP government’s drive to rid Delhi of entrenched corruption is increasingly proving to be an uphill task, with too many stakeholders erecting more and more hurdles in its way. While Delhi cabinet has cleared the Jan Lokpal Bill, which bats for stronger anti-graft norms applicable to all public servants, it seems that the government will keep facing a tough time implementing the new pro-people, pro-governance rules. Given that transparency was the last thing on the mind of the former regime that had ruled the national capital for past 15 years, allowing innumerable corruption cases to fester under its nose, AAP’s energetic demolition of the systemic rot might appear to be political immaturity, but actually the party is laying the foundations of a new political methodology.
In addition to demanding that licences or erring discoms, particularly the Anil Ambani-owned BSES companies, be scrapped in the wake of their non-payment of dues to the Centre-owned power generating companies like NTPC, the AAP government’s drive to rid Delhi of entrenched corruption is increasingly proving to be an uphill task, with too many stakeholders erecting more and more hurdles in its way. While Delhi cabinet has cleared the Jan Lokpal Bill, which bats for stronger anti-graft norms applicable to all public servants, it seems that the government will keep facing a tough time implementing the new pro-people, pro-governance rules. Given that transparency was the last thing on the mind of the former regime that had ruled the national capital for past 15 years, allowing innumerable corruption cases to fester under its nose, AAP’s energetic demolition of the systemic rot might appear to be political immaturity, but actually the party is laying the foundations of a new political methodology.