Delhi Musings: Did the PM just admit that he is powerless in Delhi?

This column does not feature the Prime Minister very often because he is generally not seen invested in the affairs of the national capital. If he is not out of the city campaigning in one state or the other, then he does make ornamental appearances in the city of Delhi once in a while as per protocol.

But then you will never see him hanging out at a cafe in Delhi or at a book store; or feeding peacocks at the Yamuna Biodiversity Park or taking a stroll in Lodhi Garden – stuff that regular Dilliwalahs do. And before you jump up - by ‘cafe’ one means the coffee shops in South or Central Delhi and obviously not Khan Market, lest he too is identified with the gang there!

Dilliwalahs would recall that he did not even notice the protesting farmers on Delhi borders for almost a year and those shrill noises of Delhi riots did not reach him either. Nor was he moved by the attacks on JNU or for that matter countless other protests that the capital is exposed to even in these days. So, this column of Delhi Musings will be an exception where he displaces our man AK or Arvind Kejriwal as the prime object of attention. Sorry AK!

It all began with a unique tug of war initiated by a claim made by the PM from the floor of the Parliament. In his address to the Lok Sabha the PM said that though Covid-19 was a pandemic that engulfed the globe, it was used for partisan politics during the first wave. He said that the Delhi government, among others, instigated the migrant workers to leave the state and that this resulted in the spread of the virus in three election-bound states including Uttar Pradesh.

Obviously, as is the norm these days, such claims are not backed by any hardcore evidence or data. Strategically, these are messages that then get amplified by a devoted brigade on social media and no one engages in fact-checks. But that’s not the point.

The issue here is that this is a serious allegation on our man AK’s government and obviously this is being challenged by him. Calling it ‘completely false’ and stating that ‘it does not suit the Prime Minister to do politics on the sufferings of the people’ he counter accused the Supreme Leader.

Surprisingly, a few interesting and serious inferences that could be drawn from PM’s statement got pushed under the carpet in that cacophony of blames and counter blames. For instance, is the Prime Minister alleging that our man AK has a bigger clout than the PM himself?

The simple insinuation then is that AK could influence workers, belonging to the states that voted for the BJP and its allies in their respective states, to move out of Delhi. If that is the case then our man AK is wasting his time in smaller states such as Punjab and Uttarakhand. He should shift his centre-stage to UP.

Now, if the PM could get people, with or without scientific temperament, to go on roof tops to bang their utensils at a particular time and date by just one statement then couldn’t he have stopped the migrant workers in Delhi?

So, did he choose to let the migrants be while being fully aware of the fact that he had it him to stop them and their sufferings? And, hey, did not this government first deny the presence of any migrant workers on the highways and later said that it wasn’t aware of their sufferings and even their deaths? So how come now it is all coming back?

You do not have to be Mark Zuckerberg or need to invest in Pegasus Spyware to know of the might of BJP and its capacity to influence people on various digital platforms. The ruling party’s competence and infra-structure of managing social media is light years ahead of all the other parties combined.

Yet it chose not to use this strength to disseminate information so as to stop the workers from hitting the highways in the summer of 2020? Or is this huge machinery exclusively for just discrediting anyone opposed to their ideology and not for the benefit of the nation? Awkward questions these!

This piece is not in defence of our man AK. And no, he doesn’t get any brownie points for simply being attacked by the supreme leader. Regular readers of Delhi Musings would know how he and his actions fuel our satirical digs. That this one piece is more of a probing rant is perhaps reflective of the agony of seeing our savvy PM use the floor of the Parliament for an election-rally kind of speech.

God save the nation.

(The writer blogs at stateofdelhi.in)