My take on this photograph and the explanation by Aam Aadmi Party is different. Neither do I see Arvind Kejriwal as a khaas aadmi* here, nor do I say like TIMES NOW that the poor guy is struggling to do justice to an image of his own making, nor do I buy the partys alibi that the business class air fare was sponsored by the organisers of the event that he went to attend. My objection to Ashish Khetans desperate defence on the television show that the organisers arranged for the trip is this: The AAP accuses the BJP and other big parties of splurging. They allege that such extravagance is possible only when funded by black money. I agree. At the same time, does the complainant not know that the ostentatious expenses of big parties are supported more by logistics and less by cash? An air ticket is a logistical support, too. Therefore, whats the difference between the AAP and bigger, older parties? Is Kejriwals party sure that organisers of such events do not earn in black, which enables them to support it LOGISTICALLY like this? This is besides the point that online updates of donations, which the party makes a song and dance about, are no proof of non-existence of offline collections. Every penny that walks into an AAP office may be accounted for. But how do we know that some donors, instead of walking into an AAP office, are not paying its leaders somewhere else (in a leaders house, somewhere in the middle of a street, inside a car, on the sidelines of an event, at a spot of a third party, in the place of a mutual friend, through Hawala etc)? * [To me, a khaas aadmi is one who can influence government; it has no established correlation with the persons material richness. Some relatively poorer people may exert more influence on governance than relatively richer people.]
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 14:30:37 +0000
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