LUCIFER BY ANY OTHER NAME

Even hardened Kejri loyalists were startled by his sudden declaration of the Mantra, “First declare than prepare” about use of odd/even number vehicles on alternate days.  The traffic police, who are to enforce Kejri diktat, were taken by total surprise: they hadn’t heard even a whisper of this assay, their intelligence sources notwithstanding. What were they to do with the offenders, fine them or take them to the gaol or hang them on the spot? No law or guidelines told them what to do.

‘Aam Aadmi was shocked. How was he to drop the kids to the school in the morning, collect his womenfolk from bus/metro stations at night - safety of women in Delhi being what it is - take his critically sick to the hospital and so on.  We are working on it, assured Kejri. We have solved the problem for the ‘Aam Aadmi’ in the Assembly. He gets Rs. 12 lakhs with which he can buy two cars. For the remaining ‘Aam Aadmi,’ we still have 25 days to get the suggestions from him and from the stake holders: traffic police, Metro/bus companies, scooter-rickshaw and taxi walahs . . .  For example how are the weak and the aged and the women and the children to get into a bus or a Metro which even the strapping 20-year olds find hard to manage? Bear it for 7-10 days starting Jan 01, said Kejri, and then the scheme will be discarded.

The Aam Aami who is asking, “if that be so, couldn’t it have been First prepare then declare,” i.e. start the scheme after the “preparation” was complete - is missing the wood for the trees.

Let me explain.

Kejri avowed from the rampart of Delhi Assembly that ‘Aam Aadmi’ had sent the ‘Aam Aadmi’ to the Assembly. Kejri had vowed to bring prosperity to the ‘Aam Aadmi.’ And he did. He hiked the pay of the  ‘Aam Aadmi’ in Delhi Assembly fourfold, to Rs 2.5 lakhs a month, making him the second highest paid  ‘Aam Aadmi’ in the country, second only to the  ‘Aam Aadmi’ in Assam Assembly.  And Kejri has vowed to make Delhi the number one very soon. [Heh, heh, they already are if you factor in the benefits]. He will now work to bring prosperity to the rest of the ‘Aam Aadmi’ ASAP. And the commoner knows what ASAP means.

But the  ‘Aam Aadmi’ being  ‘Aam Aadmi’ would have missed the nuances and would have created a furore about only a select few ‘Aam Aadmi’ benefiting at the cost of the vast majority of the  ‘Aam Aadmi.’

What better way to divert his attention than to threaten his very sustenance: to get him to worry about the safety of his women and children rather than about the largesse the select few ‘Aam Aadmi’ received.

Not for nothing is Kejri called the Lucifer of the 21^st century.