The deadlock in Delhi

THE week-long hunger strike in the Delhi Lt Governor’s office by the state CM Kejriwal and his Cabinet colleagues has triggered several political moves even as it holds the promise of at least one happy outcome. First, the positive: the officers took the unusual path of going to the press to deny they had struck work but were pressing for adequate security and due dignity. The CM, in turn, offered them the olive branch by calling them family and promising them safety. The roots of their entanglement is deep and long but the extant trigger was the alleged late-night roughing-up of Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash by AAP ministers at Kejriwal’s residence.

Now, as the two sides attempt to broker a truce, Delhiites can hope for solutions to the graver problems of water scarcity, congestion and pollution. And both sides need each other if the Delhi CM wishes to carry forward the reforms in the public delivery of education, healthcare and electricity. But it is also evident that the AAP government is sinking deeper in the swamp of a turf tussle with the LG. The Delhi High Court’s censuring of Kejriwal for his choice of venue for the protest is a setback to his familiar high-voltage game of ducks and drakes. The Delhi CM’s grouse about an unhelpful bureaucracy and two LGs who, he perceives, march to South Block’s tunes can, in the long run, hardly be met by agitational endeavours.

The Centre needs to be mindful of the fact that Kejriwal is no longer a solitary tiller after he framed the issue in terms of a domineering Centre trying to alter the country’s federalist polity. The four regional CMs, who have carved out a distinct identity on this very political spin, have eagerly joined forces to preserve their options in creating a national alternative in the next general election. But in the end, that will give no joy to Kejriwal for their end game is to enhance only their relevance. AAP will have to replace its urge for street activism with creativity and vision to pull itself out of this quagmire.