An open letter to Chief Minister Kejriwal

Dear Sir,

Let me start off by congratulating you on becoming the chief minister of Delhi.

I had recently become an admirer of your conviction towards transparency and ending corruption, even as I disagree with the populist measures that you promised and implemented swiftly after getting into office.

But regardless of policy or ideology, the past few days have really turned me away from your party. It seems from the constant media updates that for the past few days, all you and the entire Delhi government seems to be preoccupied with is towards finding you "appropriate quarters".

Now, you have made it very clear that you won't move into the Official Chief Minister's residence for ideological reasons, even though you damn well know that this part of real estate is going to lie vacant in any case. I mean, you would rather pay rent for another home than live in the place designated for you.

So, you and your followers end up finding apartments for you to live and work from (By the way, why do you need an apartment next door for your office? Isn't there a chief minister's office in Delhi? I live in Gujarat and there is a secretariat there. I may be wrong but something like that should be in the national capital as well).

Well, so I thought that's the end of the undesirable business. He's found himself a home. Now, let's crack down on the menace of corruption and influence rampant in the capital with a vengeance!

But no, you decide you won't live at this place as well because some of your followers feel it doesn't suit you to live in such a big bungalow.

Well, I beg to differ. We do not want you and your family to live uncomfortably. We want all of you to be safe, secure and comfortable, for you to serve efficiently. Judging from what we have seen of you, we are sure you won't misuse the facilities that are accorded to you. And frankly, if this goes on, you will end up living in a mud-hut for all we know!

Similarly, you and your ministers would rather while away precious time waiting for metros or in ordinary cars in traffic jams rather than engaging the different functions of the government.

You see, I ended up criticizing you and your government on issues that shouldn't even be there in the first place. I haven't even started yet on policy issues, your wasteful expenditure on subsidies, which are a far graver concern and I won't do that later in this letter as well, as clubbing those issues with your trivial concerns shall be a gross insult to these important issues.

So, my unsolicited advice to you is," Quit with the posturing already!" If this is why you ventured into public space, to look like a selfless hero, to SEEM to be doing the right things, then, I would rather not have you in the public space in the first place. DO the right things. The problem with the right things is that they are seldom desirable. We do not need you to be a selfless hero of the masses, but a righteous villain. Do you have it in you to be that person?


A lot of people have great expectations from you. I had too. I don't have them now. You right now seem just trying to make people happy without taking into account future consequences or the precedents you happen to set today as perhaps the first proper middle-class intellectual to get to govern a state.

Kindly prove me wrong.