How will AAP nail the corrupt in Congress?

The honeymoon period for Arvind Kejriwal will not be cosy like other political leaders as he would be required to deliver on the plank — sending corrupt politicians to jail —which earned him the quickest electoral success in the last three decades.

Updated on: Dec 23, 2013, 23:54:53 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The honeymoon period for Arvind Kejriwal will not be cosy like other political leaders as he would be required to deliver on the plank — sending corrupt politicians to jail —which earned him the quickest electoral success in the last three decades.

The Commonwealth Games scam was one of the biggest to hit the national Capital but the UPA government brushed it under the carpet by setting up a group of ministers to take action on the recommendations of former the Comptroller and Auditor General V K Shunglu panel report.

The group headed by Defence Minister A K Antony met only twice in about three years and failed to initiate any criminal action against political functionaries and officials found responsible for irregularities in the conduct of the games in 2010.

The Prime Minister’s Office earlier this year had refused to disclose the information on action, saying it was exempted under transparency law as the recommendations of the Shunglu panel were being considered by a group of ministers. Officials, however, said no action had been initiated.

Kejriwal had sought a registration of a case against then Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit in the CWG scam after the Shunglu panel had indicted her for irregularities in commissioning of road projects before the games.

It would be interesting to see whether Kejriwal as chief minister will bite his words or initiate criminal action against those involved in the CWG scam. The BJP has already asked the Aam Aadmi Party’s government in Delhi to re-investigate the scam and book those found guilty.

That is not the only scam that had hit Delhi earlier.

In the past, the Delhi Lokayukta had found some Delhi politicians guilty of corrupt practices, including encroachment of public land, but no action was taken by the government.

It will have to be seen whether Kejriwal who will form a government with help from the Congress will initiate action against Congress leaders.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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