I Wish Grand success For Arvind Kejriwal

I pray God for grand success of Arvind Kejriwal and his proposed political party and I may fully confidently predict grand success for Arvind Kejriwal’s proposed political party in his ambition. He has shown courage to accept the biggest challenge thrown upon Team Anna by current corrupt ruling party . There is no doubt in it that political parties and media men who are underestimating the available potential in Arvind Kejriwal will repent and regret later on their short shortsightedness. 

Leaders of Political parties like Congress Party and flatterer media men could never imagine in 1977  that Lok Nayak Mr. Jai Prakash Narayan will be in a position to remove forty year old Congress Party from power but Mr. JP could succeed in his ambition in removing the then anti-people government of Indira Gandhi. Similarly Arvind will succeed in gaining the support of common men in a year or two . He is a common men, he will lead common men, work for common men and he will remain with common men.

It may take time and it may be difficult to throw hundred year old political parties but it is not impossible for person like Arvind Kejriwal. I am hundred percent sure that sooner or later Anna Hazare and Kiren Bedi like great persons will also extend their wholehearted support to Arvind and his proposed party. 

I may not expect Congress Party will ever welcome formation of a political entity by Arvind Kejriwal and will put all hindrances in his task of  stepping in politics. But I am hopeful that leaders of BJP will at least not criticize Arvind Kejriwal at the provocation of media men who are indirectly puppet in the hands of Congress Party. It is certain that parties indulging in mud-slinging on great persons like Arvind will face the anger and intense protest of voters.

As a sportsman , leaders of right thinking political parties should be ready to accept the challenge thrown to them by  a newly born party just like a captain in cricket accept a new player in his team instead of depending  blindly on old players even if he is the weakest in the team. 

It will be wise for existing old and matured parties  to introspect , find out their faults, weed out evil persons and make all efforts to make their parties pure and corruption -free and make the same comparable and competitive with Arvind's party which is in embryo stage now.

Change is the nature of life and it is unavoidable. Time has come that we all give an honest thought to proposed party of Arvind Kejriwal and give him all possible support, at least not criticise him with prejudiced mind or on the plea that Anna Hazare is not with him or he has got no network in rural areas or he cannot afford money power to cope with giant size old parties. 

There are persons who used to criticise Anna Hazare when he was leading movement for Jan Lokpal , who criticised him when he discarded Fast and adopted public contact to mobilise mass support against corruption and in favour of strong Jan Lokpal  , who criticised Anna when he separated him from Arvind and they will continue to criticize if near future Anna rejoins the hands of Arvind and his followers. Critics are meant to criticise without caring right or wrong dimension of issues involved.

Bitter truth is that people have bitter experience with almost all political parties and hence they are afraid of formation of new party by Arvind. This is why that even person like Anna Hazare have lost faith in political parties. As a matter of fact Anna's target is also the same as that of Arvind Kejriwal and his followers. 

Media men similarly are prejudiced with their mindset and their  experience of political parties . it will not be an exaggeration to say that media men are  also playing foul game with corrupt leaders of some party or the other to a great extent. As such it is not astonishing that many persons are expressing doubt on the future of proposed party of Arvind Kejriwal.

After all One has to come forward to remove monstrous gang of corrupt leaders ruling the country . It is the duty of every lovers of the country to support all forces and all individuals who make effort to remove corrupt leaders from mainstream. It is the need of the hour to give full weight to the interest of common men instead of giving all keys of economy to few capitalist and few politicians who are corrupt.

As such effort of Arvind in the direction of removing the government from the clutches of corrupt corporate and corrupt politicians is praise worthy and commendable.

I once again express my solidarity with the cause behind the formation of a new party in the hands and under the guidance of persons like Arvind Kejriwal.

3 OCT, 2012, 07.02AM IST, ET BUREAU 

Arvind Kejriwal's party must set new standards of transparency in funding & spending

Collected form newspaper Economic Times

Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and others of the former India Against Corruption team who decided to form a political party have done well to act on that decision. Of course, a political party is, by necessity , far more complex than a movement against corruption .

A party needs to have a multi-faceted programme and a vision of the world that guides its stance on a million different concrete problems and cannot be restricted to a single-point agenda as the movement against corruption was. So far, being with the common man and being against corruption are what Kejriwal has identified as the new party's distinctive traits.

What can truly set it apart is how it handles funding and spending. In India , political parties' accounts are opaque. What they reveal to the public is only a fraction of what they actually receive and spend. This is at the crux of corruption and poor governance in India. Parties fund themselves by loot of the exchequer, sale of patronage and plain extortion .

The proceeds of such resource mobilisation take a form commonly referred to as black money, unaccounted money on which no tax is paid. This form of raising political funding allows individual politicians to amass personal fortunes in the process of raising funds for political activity. Since such forms of raising funds entails collusion of civil servants, the civil service also gets suborned : it becomes corrupt and loses accountability.

The key reform required is cleaning up political funding. If the new party can make public monthly statements of its expenditure and the sources of financing that expenditure at all levels from the village and town to the state and national level, it would be a revolution.

It would put pressure on other parties and their donors to embrace transparency. If every political party makes public its expenses and sources of financing those expenses, and makes these claims contestable by other parties and watchdog bodies, with a body like the Election Commission moderating the challenge and verification, that would change politics forever. The field is open for the new party to bring in this change.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/editorial/arvind-kejriwals-party-must-set-new-standards-of-transparency-in-funding-spending/articleshow/16649424.cms

Will change system in 15 days, says Arvind Kejriwal at party launch

(collected from newspaper 'Indian Express')

Arvind Kejriwal launched his political party on Tuesday promising to change the system within a fortnight of being “voted to power”. The name of the party will be announced on November 26.

He also promised to make some “very damaging revelations against two very big leaders of this country” on October 6.

While Kejriwal and fellow travellers abided by Anna Hazare’s wish that his name not be used for soliciting votes, Gopal Rai coined a new moniker for the social activist — Ralegan ke fakir (the saint of Ralegan) — and dwelt at length on his “teachings”. The “I am Anna” caps have been replaced by “I am aam admi I want Jan Lokpal” caps and these, Kejriwal said, would be the symbol of the party.

The party was launched in the presence of 1,000-odd people at the Constitution Club lawns, with the release of a vision document and programme. Huge portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri were displayed on the stage. Psephologist Yogendra Yadav made his formal debut as a member of the party while former Team Anna member Kumar Vishwas announced that he would stay out but canvass for votes when required.

With the Delhi Assembly elections to be the party’s launch pad, Kejriwal threatened to disconnect power supply to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s residence if she did not resolve the issue of “inflated power bills” by November 3. “All political parties are partners in corruption and their concerns for the common man are mere theatrics. However we are setting two goals for ourselves on this first day as a political party — we will force the Delhi government to reduce water and power bills. On October 7, citizens from 62 Assembly constituencies will assemble and burn their power bills once more and if the tariff hike is not undone, we will not only gherao the Chief Minister’s residence but also should she dare to disconnect supply in even one house for non-payment, we will cut off her power,” Kejriwal said.

The promises in the party’s vision document included free education and health for all. Funds for these, the speakers said, would come from the “money saved by cracking down on corruption”. The draft rules say that there should be a ceiling of one person per family for election tickets to curb nepotism. Kejriwal also claimed his team was working on a model to give direct power to the people, to be implemented immediately after they were voted to power.

\Attacking the charge levelled at them of trying to dictate laws while not being equipped to do the same, Kejriwal said that when “half the people in Parliament are illiterates”, the public was better suited to decide how their money was spent. “If Rabri Devi can be the chief minister of Bihar, common man can definitely take his own decisions.”

Vishwas took up Sonia’s visits abroad, a issue the BJP has raked up. “The 18-man medical team of US President Barrack Obama has 13 Indians, yet there is a very big leader in our country who flies out every time she has a health issue. If she cannot trust our educated sons, how does she expect us to trust her son on the veracity of whose educational qualifications Subramanian Swamy is still doing research?” he said.

BJP president Nitin Gadkari was also a favourite target, with activist Anjali Damania repeating her allegations against Gadkari on his association with Sharad Pawar. “When I met Gadkari on the irrigation scam, he said he could not do anything because he has close business ties with Sharad Pawar — ‘He does four works of ours, we do four of his’. When I mentioned the work Kirit Somaiya is doing, he said that man is eccentric, has an inflated ego,” Damania said.

Many speakers talked about Hazare, with Sanjay Singh replying to his statement that politics is full of dirt with: “Politics done by Mahatma Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jyoti Basu, E M S Namboordiripad, or Raj Narain was not so. Politics is not always full of dirty. It is being made so,” he said.

In an indication that Kejriwal hopes Hazare will be with them again, Yadav said: “One has to understand that whoever is asking questions is doing so because he cares, and the one who is opposed now can become a fellow traveller in a while.”