By Sidharth Mishra

Facing the wrath of anti-incumbency against the Congress government at the Centre, which was embroiled in several cases of corruption, in 2013 then Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit was looking for a panacea to overcome adversities and come to power for the fourth time in the row. The development agenda of Dikshit had brought her back to power in 2003 and 2008.

A visionary leader that she was, she planned an overhaul of the city during the Commonwealth Games 2010 and had believed that the fresh wave of development would see her getting another term from the people. However, her development drive was drowned in the cacophony let loose by the Anna Hazare movement, whose product is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

By Sidharth Mishra

For those planning a holiday during the winters in the scenic Andamans, the gateway for them would be through the Veer Savarkar airport. One of the must destinations in the island is Cellular Jail, where the freedom fighters were incarcerated after being transported for life by the colonial government.

A very well-researched light and sound show at the gaol complex, where Savarkar was jailed twice, tells the Savarkar story in detail. A nation which recognized him as a freedom fighter, issued a stamp in his memory and named an airport after him is suddenly debating his antecedents.

By Sidharth Mishra

Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has his hands full. As if the ongoing unrest in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was not enough, discontent has now boiled over on the Delhi University campus with the teachers laying a siege of the Vice Chancellor’s office.

In the present turmoil on the two campuses, there is one commonality, the utter failures of the two vice chancellors, Mamidala Jagdeesh Kumar of the JNU and Yogesh Tyagi of the Delhi University to encourage dialogue. In both the cases the charge against the establishment is of unilateral decision making without taking into account the views of the students and the teaching communities.

By Sidharth Mishra

With Delhi Police registering FIRS against the agitating students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the JNU administration moving the High Court for a contempt of the court case against the students and the cops, it’s difficult to comprehend if its beginning of the end of the crisis, or the end of the beginning which was made a day earlier with the government constituting a three-member committee to look into the matter.

JNU, its students and faculty have been discussed variously for the past week in public domain with the dominant narrative being that they are anti-national and a burden on society; and JNU is an ‘adda’ (hub) of politics which should be shut down. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank have, however, shown signs of some benevolence towards the agitating students but the same cannot be said about the more stringent elements wedded to their common ideology.

By Sidharth Mishra

The ‘parali’ farm fires in the fields of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh has been effectively put out under the directions of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court passed the order when for once the BJP-led Central government and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government decided to put their heads together and lay blame for pollution in country’s capital at the doors of the voiceless farmers.

They did so to save their skin, lest the court come down heavily on them for allowing Delhi to turn into a gas chamber by a well-designed system of governance deficit, which over a period of time has turned into fine art of electoral politics. But the nature this time around has decided to teach a lesson. The pollution has refused to go and the Supreme Court has now ordered closure of schools in Delhi and surrounding areas till November 15.

By Sidharth Mishra

In times not very far back in Delhi’s political history, if a politician was introduced as “zameen se jude hue neta”, it did not mean the person was essentially a grassroots leader. It often meant that he was associated with dealing in plotting of land in the unauthorised colonies.

The central government this week decided to regularise all the 1797 such colonies ahead of the assembly polls scheduled towards January-end next year. That it’s a politically expedient decision, goes without saying with more than one-third of the city’s population living in these colonies spread over 35 of the 70 constituencies.

This move could prove to be a game changer in a race where so far Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party for now looked to be ahead of its rivals. An analysis of the Lok sabha polls results would show that the voters in the unauthorised colonies polled in large numbers in favour of the BJP candidates, with the hope that the Centre would oblige them by ending the illegal status of their colonies. Thus, this move could be seen both as a payback by the BJP leadership and also an investment for a favourable result in the upcoming assembly elections.

By Sidharth Mishra

The battle for Delhi is all set for January-end next year. If you needed a confirmation, it was given in Home Minister Amit Shah’s interview to News18, where he gave sufficient indications for the same. The interview also showed somewhat lack of preparedness on the part of the BJP for the crucial electoral battle for legislative assembly, which the party has to fight in the nation’s Capital.

Shah, who is ruling-BJP president too, talked at aplomb of his party’s chances in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand, the states going to the polls before Delhi and about West Bengal, the citadel which he envisages to breach in two years’ time. However, when he was asked about party’s chances in Delhi, he did not unveil a very convincing roadmap.

He first avoided a direct answer to the question if the party would go to polls in Delhi with a Chief Ministerial face, saying it could be but in the same breath added that it should not be forgotten that the party, after its debacle in 2015 assembly polls, had won the municipal polls in 2017 and also the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

By Sidharth Mishra

This year during the Dusshera celebrations in the national Capital, something very unusual happened. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, unlike his predecessors, chose the outskirts of the national Capital over the Ramlila (ballad on life of Ram, the king of Ayodhya) celebrations in the walled city for Ravan Dahan (annihilating the demon).

Not that the traditional Ramlilas did not take place in the walled city. There were three in the Lal Qila grounds and the oldest in the neigbouring Ramlila grounds near Delhi Gate. With time these Ramlilas have come to be affiliate of one political party or the other, thus we had Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at one stage and the Congress leadership on the other.

The Prime Minister chose not to be part of the ‘political divide’ and decided to be part of a celebration in the outskirts, albeit accompanied by his party colleagues Parvesh Verma, the local MP and the Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari. The message which the Prime Minister tried giving by bringing the two leaders, rivals in the faction-ridden Delhi BJP, together was to fight the upcoming assembly polls in the city unitedly.