Capital punishment

Himani Chandel

The National Capital crawled at a snail’s pace in the absence of any government in 2014. Nothing great happened to the city in terms of development though it was abuzz with a lot of political happenings throughout the year, including a turbulent 49-day reign of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal.
The first two months of the year began with new hopes, expectations and promises made by Kejriwal (46), a social-activist-turned-politician and also the youngest Chief Minister of Delhi who formed the state government with full majority in January.
After offering a number of sops to the people of Delhi, the AAP government finished quite early with a whimper as Kejriwal stepped down just one-day short of 50 on February 14 after AAPs failure to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill in Delhi Assembly. The Bill was the party's major poll plank and its main platform for being an anti-corruption party. 
Though the Kejriwal government’’s initial decisions like slashing of power and water tariffs were enough to impress the voters, before it could give some relief to the common man, there were also controversial moves like ordering the filing of FIR against then Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily and RIL chief Mukesh Ambani for alleged collusion in fixing prices of natural gas from the KG basin. The debutant AAP-government failed to provide a stable administration with its ministers' 'aam admi-style' working. The midnight raid by Cabinet Minister Somnath Bharti at a South-African national's house to bust an alleged sex and drug racket fanned trouble for the government. Later, the Chief Minister too joined the melee.  Just a few days the Republic Day celebrations, he sat outside Rail Bhawan on a three-day dharna against the policemen who had refused to take action in a particular case. However, AAP's decision to quit government did not work in its favour as the party lost all seven seats in Delhi during Lok Sabha elections. Kejriwal realised that 'resigning as Chief Minister was his biggest mistake'.
Going against the dissolution, the Lieutenant Governor put the State Assembly in the suspension mode till November 3. Then he finally recommended to the President to dissolve it after all the three major players BJP, AAP and Congress expressed their 'inability' to form the government. With it came to an end the eight-month long political uncertainty in the capital.
The announcement of re-elections has once again stirred the political aspirations of all parties as they get set to announce their poll manifestoes.
On the other side, the city lived up to its reputation of a 'crime capital' as it witnessed a 100 per cent rise in the crime incidents in 2014. The most recent one which rocked the Capital was the rape of a 26-year-old girl by a cab driver of a web-based taxi-service. It once again highlighted the administration's inability to provide a safe and secure transport system for women.
The other vulnerable section was the people from North-East, who are increasingly being targeted against. The capital not only accounted for the highest number of crimes against people of the North-East origin over the past three years but also reported over 226 per cent increase in such crimes in the past one year. There was much hue and cry in the city after the death of Arunachal Pradesh legislator's son Nido Taniam. He died after he was allegedly beaten up by some shopkeepers in the Lajpat Nagar area following an altercation sparked off by their taunts on his hairstyle.