V Raghunathan
08 March 2014, 12:34 AM IST
Dear Mr Kejriwal,
I didn't think you will give me cause to write to you once again so soon. By taking India Today's private Beechcraft flight today (March 7, 2014), you make me feel foolish that I ever supported you or reposed some faith in you as a politician of a new India. Your representative on the prime time chat show may have pathetically tried to defend the indefensible with such pitiable excuses as 1) the Beechcraft ride was paid for by India Today and not by you, and 2) that you took the flight in the interest of saving time! Your defender didn't seem to reflect for a moment that just this morning in Gujarat you had eloquently fired away several questions at Narendra Modi on his use of private flights and then within hours you had hopped aboard one yourself, after all the moralistic stance you had taken all this while about eschewing the VIP culture, the red lights, the security, the cavalcade and other perks of office and what have you. The truth is that your action today tantamounts to spitting on the face of all those true aam admis who have stood by you and believed in the values that you pretended to abide by all this time. The truth is today, you don't have a shred of a fig-leaf left to hide your abject bareness behind.
After all, if you say you did not pay for your Beechcraft ride, probably the same holds true for most of our politicians, whether Congress, BJP or any other party; very few of them are stupid enough to pay for it themselves in any case. If a Media Group was willing to pay for you on one pretext, I am sure every politician can find some Group or the other to proffer other equally plausible pretexts to fly them. And if your reason was in the interest of time, can you really say all those other politicians that you ranted and raved against for using private flights, aren't equally pressed for time during elections or even otherwise?
The truth is you have let down millions of your supporters. I had said in my last letter that you were in danger of being reduced to a blip in the pages of history, when you had an opportunity to have a volume to yourself. I confess that I was sadly mistaken. I am now convinced that you are a more likely candidate to go down as a laughing stock in history for your repeated contradictions of yourself, as many have already pointed out – you were against joining politics, but you did; you were dead against seeking the support of Congress for forming a Government but you did; you were against ostentatious housing but actively sought two large apartments; you pretended to take decisions in consultation with aam admi supporters, but you were in essence a one-man high command like most parties; you promised to bring in the Lokpal Bill within 15 days of coming to power, but you didn't; you rode the moral high horse as an aam admi and now you have exchanged it for an immoral private luxury jet, as if every aam admi has the option of a luxury jet, when time is of essence. So much for your standing by the aam admi's mores. Basically what you are saying is that what you do is right and what others do is wrong. You believe like a megalomaniac that you can be measured only by a special yardstick; not the one that applies to others.
I was wondering why Anna Hazare would rather support a Mamata Banerjee than support you; or why a Kiran Bedi should support the BJP rather than your party. Now I am beginning to get some answers. For who in his right mind would like to stand by you and support your Beechcraft flight today? At least the other politicians have the benefit of being less hypocritical.
You have already shown that the ordinary rules of aam admi no longer apply to you. And this, when you have been a Chief Minister for a tenure of exactly 49 days. God knows what you would do when you become more seasoned in your craft.
Lest I am misunderstood, let me make it clear that personally I have nothing against a politician or anybody else using a private aircraft, as long as they are not being hypocritical and are being transparent and have earned the wealth leading to that aircraft honestly and fairly. You Sir, are squarely guilty of being a hypocrite. You used to speak of crony capitalists. What do we call India today vis-à-vis you?
Either you are a simpleton and so unable to see the duplicity of your stance, or think the aam admi is a simpleton who cannot see the duplicity of your stance. If you think the latter, you are still a simpleton. In dashing the hopes of so many, when you seemed to be the only of hope, however distant, for the distraught millions of this country, today sadly, you represent the collective tragedy of India's poverty of leadership, even when all of you fly those private jets. Power corrupts? Absolutely.
Sir, if you have a shred of remorse in you, come on, seek an unconditional apology from the aam admi for this titanic stupidity of yours and who knows, the patient, long-suffering, large hearted and the despondent aam admi robbed of all dignity by the political masses of the country may yet give you one last benefit of the doubt; but personally I doubt. I think you may have crossed the Rubicon on that Beechcraft.
Raghu
Source: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Outraged/entry/another-open-letter-to-arvind-kejriwal
08 March 2014, 12:34 AM IST
Dear Mr Kejriwal,
I didn't think you will give me cause to write to you once again so soon. By taking India Today's private Beechcraft flight today (March 7, 2014), you make me feel foolish that I ever supported you or reposed some faith in you as a politician of a new India. Your representative on the prime time chat show may have pathetically tried to defend the indefensible with such pitiable excuses as 1) the Beechcraft ride was paid for by India Today and not by you, and 2) that you took the flight in the interest of saving time! Your defender didn't seem to reflect for a moment that just this morning in Gujarat you had eloquently fired away several questions at Narendra Modi on his use of private flights and then within hours you had hopped aboard one yourself, after all the moralistic stance you had taken all this while about eschewing the VIP culture, the red lights, the security, the cavalcade and other perks of office and what have you. The truth is that your action today tantamounts to spitting on the face of all those true aam admis who have stood by you and believed in the values that you pretended to abide by all this time. The truth is today, you don't have a shred of a fig-leaf left to hide your abject bareness behind.
After all, if you say you did not pay for your Beechcraft ride, probably the same holds true for most of our politicians, whether Congress, BJP or any other party; very few of them are stupid enough to pay for it themselves in any case. If a Media Group was willing to pay for you on one pretext, I am sure every politician can find some Group or the other to proffer other equally plausible pretexts to fly them. And if your reason was in the interest of time, can you really say all those other politicians that you ranted and raved against for using private flights, aren't equally pressed for time during elections or even otherwise?
The truth is you have let down millions of your supporters. I had said in my last letter that you were in danger of being reduced to a blip in the pages of history, when you had an opportunity to have a volume to yourself. I confess that I was sadly mistaken. I am now convinced that you are a more likely candidate to go down as a laughing stock in history for your repeated contradictions of yourself, as many have already pointed out – you were against joining politics, but you did; you were dead against seeking the support of Congress for forming a Government but you did; you were against ostentatious housing but actively sought two large apartments; you pretended to take decisions in consultation with aam admi supporters, but you were in essence a one-man high command like most parties; you promised to bring in the Lokpal Bill within 15 days of coming to power, but you didn't; you rode the moral high horse as an aam admi and now you have exchanged it for an immoral private luxury jet, as if every aam admi has the option of a luxury jet, when time is of essence. So much for your standing by the aam admi's mores. Basically what you are saying is that what you do is right and what others do is wrong. You believe like a megalomaniac that you can be measured only by a special yardstick; not the one that applies to others.
I was wondering why Anna Hazare would rather support a Mamata Banerjee than support you; or why a Kiran Bedi should support the BJP rather than your party. Now I am beginning to get some answers. For who in his right mind would like to stand by you and support your Beechcraft flight today? At least the other politicians have the benefit of being less hypocritical.
You have already shown that the ordinary rules of aam admi no longer apply to you. And this, when you have been a Chief Minister for a tenure of exactly 49 days. God knows what you would do when you become more seasoned in your craft.
Lest I am misunderstood, let me make it clear that personally I have nothing against a politician or anybody else using a private aircraft, as long as they are not being hypocritical and are being transparent and have earned the wealth leading to that aircraft honestly and fairly. You Sir, are squarely guilty of being a hypocrite. You used to speak of crony capitalists. What do we call India today vis-à-vis you?
Either you are a simpleton and so unable to see the duplicity of your stance, or think the aam admi is a simpleton who cannot see the duplicity of your stance. If you think the latter, you are still a simpleton. In dashing the hopes of so many, when you seemed to be the only of hope, however distant, for the distraught millions of this country, today sadly, you represent the collective tragedy of India's poverty of leadership, even when all of you fly those private jets. Power corrupts? Absolutely.
Sir, if you have a shred of remorse in you, come on, seek an unconditional apology from the aam admi for this titanic stupidity of yours and who knows, the patient, long-suffering, large hearted and the despondent aam admi robbed of all dignity by the political masses of the country may yet give you one last benefit of the doubt; but personally I doubt. I think you may have crossed the Rubicon on that Beechcraft.
Raghu
Source: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Outraged/entry/another-open-letter-to-arvind-kejriwal
Ha ha! I am not the only one who wrote an open letter to AK. Please read the post at http://goo.gl/XZKeIn and then http://goo.gl/1GwPyL
ReplyDelete