Will Kejriwal apologize to Manmohan Singh before demanding ‘Bharat Ratna’?
Pankaj Srivastava December 30,2024
Hansal Mehta, the creative director of the 2019 film ‘Accidental Prime Minister’, based on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has admitted that the film was made to defame the former Prime Minister. He has said on the social media platform X that the comment of famous journalist Vir Sanghvi is more than 100% correct that “This film is one of the worst Hindi films ever made based on ‘lies’. This film is an example of how the media can be used to defame a decent man.” When actor Anupam Kher, who played Manmohan Singh in the film and is a famous fan of PM Modi, got angry and reminded Hansal Mehta that he was also associated with this film, so it is ‘hypocrisy’ for him to agree with Sanghvi’s comment, Mehta said bluntly, “Obviously I own up to my mistakes. I can accept that I made a mistake.” But the Aam Aadmi Party does not have the courage like Hansal Mehta. Otherwise, the leaders of this party should have apologized for their behavior with the late Manmohan Singh before demanding ‘Bharat Ratna’ for him. What a paradox it is that the party that was born out of the anti-corruption movement that declared Manmohan Singh as the ‘most corrupt Prime Minister’ is today demanding ‘Bharat Ratna’ for him, remembering him as an ‘honest’ and ‘direction-giving Prime Minister’. The party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said in an interview to news agency PTI, ‘Manmohan Singh ji’s death is an irreparable loss for India. History will remember him as a great and honest leader. He has all the qualifications to get Bharat Ratna. The Government of India should consider this.’
Those who remember the Jan Lokpal movement that took place between 2011 and 2013 in Delhi on the face of Anna Hazare and the map created by Arvind Kejriwal will definitely be surprised to see such statements coming after the death of Manmohan Singh. Anna Hazare, who was promoted as Gandhi’s ‘incarnation’ during the movement, said, “For Manmohan Singh, society and country came first. Because of him, our country got a new direction and the country is still moving on the path of progress.” At the same time, Arvind Kejriwal has said that ‘Dr. Singh was a visionary leader whose economic reforms shaped modern India and whose humility influenced the lives of countless people.’
After listening to these statements, it is difficult to believe that these people had once created a storm from Jantar-Mantar to Ramlila Maidan by making the alleged corruption of Manmohan Singh and his cabinet an issue. The demand of the movement was to form a ‘Jan-Lokpal’ who has so much power that he can summon even the Prime Minister and the CBI should also be under him. The atmosphere of songs, music and fluttering tricolours in the movement was taken to every home by corporate controlled news channels, due to which the image of Manmohan government became ‘corrupt’ on an all India level. The leaders of Anna movement said that as soon as ‘Jan Lokpal’ is formed, all the corrupt people will be in jail. Then Arvind Kejriwal had said, ‘If CBI is independent, then our Prime Minister can also go to jail in 2G or coal scam.’
That is, Kejriwal was completely sure that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was behind the telecom and coal scams. And if the CBI is independent, they are bound to go to jail. At that time, the media was propagating the words of CAG Vinod Rai, who had assessed the telecom scam of Rs. 176,000 crores, as if they were true. Sometimes the coal scam, sometimes the Commonwealth scam, sometimes the 2G scam, the media which was playing the tune of ‘Singh is King’ after he won the elections for the second time in 2009, was suddenly filled with explosive material against his government.
Twelve years later, all those allegations have vanished. Commenting on CAG Vinod Rai’s assessment of the telecom scam, the CBI court said, ‘Some people picked up some selective facts in this case and termed it a scam according to their own understanding.’
CAG Vinod Rai had written a book on this matter in which it was said that Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam had put pressure on not to take Manmohan Singh’s name in the meetings of PAC or JPC. But when Sanjay Nirupam claimed defamation, he accepted that it was his false statement.
It can be easily understood that a massive conspiracy was hatched against the Manmohan government at that time due to which the Congress had to suffer heavy losses. RSS had put in all its efforts in gathering crowd and other facilities in the Anna movement, which was upset with the BJP’s defeat for the second time in a row in the Lok Sabha elections. It had considered Kejriwal as its own pawn, who used to make strategies in its ‘Vivekananda Foundation’, but Kejriwal fooled it by forming a separate party. But after forming the government, did this party show any seriousness about its ‘Janal Kopal’, which it once used to call the cure for every disease?
Kejriwal had won 28 seats in Delhi in the elections held in December 2013 by accusing the Manmohan Singh government at the center and the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi of corruption. For the majority, he had to take support from the same Congress which he had been abusing day and night. At that time, he made an issue of his ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’ not being accepted and resigned after two months and then in 2015, he created a record by winning 67 out of 70 seats in Delhi. With this, the process of forgetting Jan Lokpal also started. The Jan Lokpal Bill was passed in the Delhi Assembly and sent to the Center and silence was maintained.
His argument of Delhi not being a full state or the government not having full powers is useless because despite having a full power government in Punjab, the Jan Lokpal Bill has not been passed till date. Forget about the government, there is no Lokpal in the party too. At one time, a reputed person like Admiral Ramdas was made the Lokpal to keep an eye on the party but as soon as a full majority government was formed in Delhi, he was got rid of. People like Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, who raised questions about democracy etc., were also expelled from the party.
The Manmohan government had passed the Lokpal Act in 2013. Arvind Kejriwal had then called it ‘Jokepal’ but when the Modi government made several amendments in 2016 weakening the Lokpal Act, Kejriwal did not remember his dharna-protest.
He never spoke up about the procrastination being done regarding this law. The Modi government appointed the country’s first Lokpal in 2019, that is, six years after the law was made and the CBI registered the first case in March 2022 at the behest of the Lokpal. Kejriwal, who had become a skinny figure during the Anna movement, is now blessed with good health but it seems that his memory has become very weak, otherwise he would have remembered all the resolutions taken by him during the anti-corruption movement.
Why did corruption increase after 2014?
The full benefit of the anti-corruption Anna movement naturally went to the largest opposition party of that time and Modi’s rhetoric made him a hero who won applause on the political stage. Modi became the Prime Minister. But in the last ten years, corruption has increased instead of decreasing. In 2014, India’s ranking in the list of corrupt countries released by Transparency International was 85th. In 2024, its rank has fallen to 93rd. India’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) was 39 in 2023, whereas Denmark, which has the title of least corrupt country in this list of 180 countries, has a CPI of 90 and Somalia, which is said to be the most corrupt country, has a CPI of 18.
Today, Aam Aadmi Party has truly become a ‘common’ party. Many of its leaders, including Kejriwal, have gone to jail on corruption charges. Kejriwal, who gave the slogan of simplicity, is accused of committing a scam in the liquor policy and converting his residence into a ‘Sheesh Mahal’ by spending 52 crores during his tenure as Chief Minister. After stepping down from the post of Chief Minister, Atishi Singh is ruling with his slippers on the chair. That is, her claim of collective leadership, transparency and honesty is under question. Kejriwal used to sing songs like ‘Insaan se insaan mein ho bhaichara’ from his stage, but the attitude of the party and the government on the agitation and violence in Delhi against CAA and NRC has also made his commitment to secularism questionable.
So what was the achievement of Kejriwal’s movement? That Manmohan Singh, who had an impeccable character, was badly defamed and Kejriwal got the opportunity to become the Chief Minister. Manmohan Singh, who was wounded by the words of Kejriwal and his party, never gave any reply. On the contrary, when the Modi government brought the ‘Delhi Services Bill’ to reduce the powers of the Delhi government, Manmohan Singh reached the Rajya Sabha on a wheel chair to vote against it. This was the magnanimity of Manmohan Singh. If Kejriwal wanted, he could have met him and apologized for the allegations leveled against him, but he missed it. The hidden message in the demand to give ‘Bharat Ratna’ to Manmohan Singh is that the Aam Aadmi Party considers its allegations wrong. If Kejriwal wants, he can rectify his past mistake by publicly expressing regret.
