Negative publicity has hit the party hard on its chin.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: Just when India’s newly found Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) showed promise and rekindled hopes of a clean government under the stewardship of Arvind Kejriwal, the outfit which rose out of a civil rights movement has been punched hard on the chin. But the party has not started reeling yet.
If anybody is to be blamed it has to be the party itself with some of its cadres engaging in over-zealous activities and creating a huge furor. It has had some extremely negative incidents involving party leader Kumar Vishwas and Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti.
Vishwas, who is slated to take on Rahul Gandhi at the upcoming general elections in May from Amethi – the stronghold constituency of the Gandhi family – claims to be a poet. However, his utterings at kavi sammelans is not exactly making people laugh now. In one of his ‘fun-poems’ he had made sexist remarks against nurses from Kerala, who abound the profession in India and abroad.
In a 23 second YouTube clip which had gone viral, Vishwas said, “Pehle jab aadmi bimar padhta tha bechara purush to jata tha haspatal mein toh tassali rakhta tha. Pehle narsein jo thee Keral se aati thi, kaali peeli si. Toh moonh se ‘sister’ nikalta tha. Andar se aavaz nikalti thi ki ‘Allah, sister hi ho!’ Bahut saari ladkiyan profile pe photo lagati hi nahi, ki pata nahin kya ho jaye. Ab aaj kal to nurse bhi north India ki aane lagi, ekdum bilkul shandar.” (Earlier men were comfortable with nurses because they came only from Kerala. They were dark so the men were happy to call them ‘sister’ and no more. Many of these girls wouldn’t even put up their profile photos. Now there are north Indian nurses, absolutely glamorous.)
The AAP was not quick to tender an apology. They spoke of the humor in the poem only but when protests from nurses spiked, the party quickly tendered an apology from Vishwas. In a statement sent to the AAP’s Kerala unit, he said he had never tried to ‘intentionally hurt the sentiments of anyone’.
“It has come to my knowledge that an old video-clip of one of my kavi sammelans has hurt the feelings of many of my friends residing in Kerala. I must say that I don’t appreciate any discrimination based on religion, region, gender, caste or creed. I never tried to intentionally hurt the sentiments of anyone,” he stated.
Vishwas said jokes delivered in a kavi sammelan are scripted and presented in a jocular and lighthearted manner without an intention to harm anybody’s feelings. “But if some words of mine have hurt the sentiments of my friends, I apologize to them from depth of my heart”, he said. Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had demanded an apology from the APP leader for his remarks.
He is also seen in other video enthralling audiences over Shoaib Malik and his marriage to tennis ace Sania Mirza. He says there is nothing wrong in getting married. Since Sania could not do well in her profession she decided to try her luck in another field. He compares Shoaib to an eunuch. “If she wanted to marry a ‘hitter’, she could have married someone from India, why did she go all the way to Pakistan”, Vishwas asks, as the crowd bursts out laughing and cheering.
Vishwas had spoken on these subjects two years back. But with offensive humor like this, he has to do much more to aspire for being a public figure.
Now take the case of Somnath Bharti, the law minister. Last week, he went on a night raid to Khirki Extension – an urban village next to the posh Saket area – on allegations that a sex trade and drug peddling racket was flourishing in the locality with the help of foreign nationals, mostly Nigerians. However the midnight raid misfired with two African women filing a FIR against the Bharti.
A Delhi court today, on Thursday, directed police to file a report on the midnight raid allegedly led by Bharti, after a second African woman filed a plea seeking registration of FIR stating that the legislator had barged into their house and assaulted them. Women activists are hounding Bharti and a huge ruckus has been created which all adds up to the negativity to the AAP which had recently romped home victorious defeating an entrenched Congress which had been ruling the capital for 15-years.
The AAP is today under flak from many sides. Even Kejriwal’s dharna near India Gate to protest against police inaction has not gone down with many in the city as it had disrupted public transport including the all-important metro rail.
But it is a murky situation. Delhi has been wracked by corruption and scams for over a period of time and the governance and people’s grievances had never been taken into account by the earlier political parties, Congress or the BJP. This also involved a police force which had been termed inefficient and extortionists and had been always seen more involved in protecting the VIPs, read politicians.
If at all Kejriwal and his band of ministers want to cleanse the government then they have to shift from their current path of knee-jerk reactions and settle down for a more concerted and serious efforts with lots of introspection to rule the raucous city of Delhi.
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