Delhi Polls: The Season of Political Chargesheets

By Deepak Parvatiyar

January 12, 2015

On August 21, 2014, the Delhi Congress submitted a 25-point chargesheet against Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor, for the sufferings of the people of Delhi. Some of the charges that the Congress made against its political rivals were:

a) Both the BJP and the AAP were creating confusion over regularisation of unauthorised colonies to derive political mileage

b) Welfare schemes like Ladli, Annasri and Pension that were introduced by the Congress government, were stopped

c) The residents were not being given food security cards

d) New flyovers and elevated roads projects as well as mono rail projects were now thrown in the dust bin

e) The BJP as well as the AAP could not deliver on their respective promises of reducing the power tariff by 30 per cent and 50 per cent

f)       From April 1 last year, power subsidy had been stopped

Hurling Accusations Common during Election Time

Chargesheeting the ruling party over non performance or reneging their promises is in vogue nowadays. The irony is that though such chargesheets influence voters, the political parties refuse to take lessons from the poll verdicts.

Consider that the same Congress was put in the dock by the AAP and the BJP as well in the last Assembly elections in Delhi. The list of charges was much bigger then. As compared to the Congress’s 25-point charge sheet, the AAP had then produced a massive 370 page chargesheet against the Congress in 2010. At that time the then Congress Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit was directly in the line of fire from the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, who subsequently defeated her in the fray.

AAP and BJP had Levelled Serious Charges of Graft against the Sheila Dikshit Government

What made the AAP’s charge sheet against the Sheila Dikshit government a potent weapon were the serious charges of graft particularly during the Commonwealth Games that Kejriwal along with Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev (who is now closer to the BJP) submitted to the police.

Kejriwal had then claimed to have sourced the information from government agencies such as the Central Vigilance Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports. The accusations were of varying nature — from scam in purchase of hospital equipment, to granting of contracts.

A twin attack in fact was unleashed then against the Congress government both by the BJP and the AAP. Addressing his first election rally in Delhi before the 2013 state assembly elections, the BJP’s then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi too had made a pointed reference to the Commonwealth Games and stated “the loot was not only of the treasury, but of our faith and name, which have been eroded”. The charges struck a chord with the voters, who voted against the Congress then.

Kejriwal could exploit the situation better than his rivals. His party’s ‘pol khol’ (loosely translated as exposes) were a hit with the voters and the list of such ‘exposes’ was quite big – be that naming (the then union ministers) Kapil Sibbal, P.Chidambaram and (then Attorney General) GE Vahnavati’s alleged involvement in the 2G scam, or the Congress government’s alleged undue favours to India’s richest industrialist, Mukesh Ambani, or the much discredited ‘Vadragate’ (on the involvement of Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son in laws involvement in alleged dubious land deals).

Kejrival as CM did no Justice to his 370-page Chargesheet

To his credit, he, as CM, did  order an investigation against Ambani over gas pricing, and did order an FIR against Sheila in a scam related to purchases made for Commonwealth Games. However, considering his 370-page chargesheet, that mentioned many more graft charges than just one, the action seemed a significant climbdown and once in government, Kejriwal did beat a retreat claiming his 370-page report did not “mention any names. It was based on newspaper reports”.

Why did Kejriwal suddenly change his stand? The more pressing question, therefore, is of the veracity of such political charge sheets. Why should the voters be trapped in such propaganda?

Voters Need to See Through Political Games

The reason seems simple – the non deliverance of promises and the failure of the successive governments to meet the people’s expectations. This applies not just to Delhi but to all other states as well and also to the Parliament elections.

Political chargesheets, as the latest Congress chargesheet against the AAP and the BJP signify, will continue to stay and to be exploited for electoral gains. The onus therefore is on the voters to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. Though, it is a difficult task altogether.