My Opinion

Enough of meetings, too much efforts have been made to initiate dialogue, now is the time for strong and intensive action: against those who are indulging in violence in the valley, attacking security personnel, against those separatist leaders who are thriving on support from Pakistan, their channels of funds need to be plugged, they should be thrown into jail.

The people of India now expect Prime Minister Narendra Modi to show to the world what his government can do to tackle separatism in the valley. Those showing flags of Pakistan on Indian soil need to be taught a lesson.

Two things have now become clear after the all-party delegation’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir. One, the Centre is trying its utmost to bring back normalcy in the valley, and the opposition parties are with the government, Two, separatist leaders of Hurriyat Conference do not want normalcy to be restored. The question now is: what do the Hurriyat Conference leaders want? They may have been dissatisfied with the Centre, but why did they refuse to even speak to the all-party delegation? The answer was given by Abdul Ghani Bhat. Hurriyat leaders want India to start unconditional talks with Pakistan. But the stance taken by Hurriyat leaders on not even speaking to Indian political leaders, raises question about their credibility. One can understand if they speak for the people of Kashmir, but to advocate for Pakistan? Nobody can accept.

There is not an iota of doubt that Navjot Singh Sidhu is popular in his home state, he is dynamic, he is considered a good orator, and if he contests the elections, he can affect the Punjab poll results. Because of this, the BJP leadership had nominated him to the Rajya Sabha, but he decided to quit. The Aam Aadmi Party then tried to woo him, but Sidhu refused to accept its terms and conditions. The Congress, too, tried to ensnare him, but Sidhu refused to accept Amarinder Singh as his captain. Now if Sidhu sets up a front, he can cause headache to all the parties that had sought his support. Meanwhile, the other factor is Suchha Singh Chotepur, who set up and groomed the AAP in Punjab, but was hounded out by Arvind Kejriwal. If Chotepur gives a fight to Kejriwal and start revealing the true colours of Kejriwal to the voters of Punjab, it will definitely affect the preferences of voters in Punjab. And the most significant part is that if Sidhu’s front joins hands with Chotepur’s party, then they can really become a force to reckon with in Punjab.

If one listens carefully to what Arvind Kejriwal, his ex-party leader Prashant Bhushan and his dismissed minister Sandeep Kumar are saying, one thing becomes clear: Kejriwal and his colleagues are paying only lip service to probity, morality and sincerity in public life. Whenever Kejriwal has to win elections, he looks at the candidate’s winnability instead of honesty, and purposefully ignores the candidate’s character, corruption and background. When Kejriwal’s ministers get caught, they either say I’m a Dalit, or I’m a Muslim, but, in reality, all of them are in the same league. Kejriwal still lives under the illusion that he can mislead the public by claiming that he took quick action, but there’s an old Bollywood song ‘yeh public hai, sab jaanti hai’. Kejriwal taught his volunteers how to carry out a sting, but the traps they had dug are snaring their own ‘diamonds’ who are now turning as black as a coal. But, Kejriwal is yet to realise his mistake. He is busy carrying out stings against his own party leaders, one glaring example of this is Suchha Singh Chotepur of Punjab.

When Arvind Kejriwal came to power, he had claimed he had brought rare “diamonds”to the Delhi assembly.

Today one such “diamond” was found caught in a sex scandal, and that too, a minister given charge of women’s welfare. He was caught on camera doing obscene acts with women.

Earlier, one such “diamond” was sent to jail for submitting fake marksheet, another “diamond” was nabbed extorting money from builders.

Some more such “diamonds” were found embroiled in other scandals.

I don’t know how many more “diamonds” he has inside his kitty.

And even after all this, if Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia continue to say that their party believes in principles, their party can never tolerate disrespect to women, their party never tolerates scams and scandals, then we can only say this: God save the AAP.