Samanya Praja and His "Changed" Dilli...

Once upon a time, Samanya Praja, a man in his middle ages, lived in a middle class suburb of India's capital Delhi. He was very frustrated with Indian politics. He wanted change. He was feeling angry at 1000s of rapes happening in his city. He felt like kicking the politicians indulging in 2G, CWG, Coalgate and a thousand other scams. He used to tell his family that he has lost hope in the Idea of India. He felt very pessimistic at the prospects of jobs, progress and security of his son and daughter. He was concerned on how his wife and himself would get any quality healthcare in Delhi, after seeing corruption from cradle to grave in the society.

Then came a messiah.. A self declared corruption fighter named Arvind Kejriwal. A man who worked as a government babu, but miraculously managed to avoid transfer in his entire career.. a Guinness record in corrupt India! He always sat next to famous people of the society like Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev. He dressed like Samanya Praja, so there was a lot of connection. The simple shirt, the basic pant, a chappal, no big car, very pleasing mannerism.. Praja got very attracted. He heard Arvind a few times. He got very inspired at "Brashtachar khatam karo" slogans. He convinced himself and his family that this man can change Delhi. This man is the answer to all ills they had seen so far. They paid close attention to the charming words of Kejriwal. The most impressive speeches were always on how the highly corrupt Sheila Dikshit would be sent to jail if Kejriwal comes to power. They cheered when they heard that rapes would be stopped in Delhi. They loved it when they heard that Delhi would be a clean and green city. Praja jumped when they heard that they would be getting cheaper electricity 24*7, no more slums in Delhi, cheaper and reliable water, clean roads, children getting free WiFi, lots of new schools, upcoming great hospitals, perfect Lokayukta and Lokpal systems, perfect harmony in the society, absolutely no cheating by MLAs, security for senior citizen... oh the list was so long.. it felt like a Utopian dream world was just knocking on the door of Delhi..

Then a tragic accident. One bad evening, Samanya Praja got hit by a drunken driver. He descended into coma.

After great effort by doctors and his family, he woke up just before Diwali of 2015. The family cheered and prayed to Durga mata profusely. Thank you Devi ma.. Our Samanya Praja is back in walking state after sleeping unconscious for a long time.

After 4 hours of cheers, juice and light food, Praja asks.. Where am I? What date is it? How are things?
His family slowly answers them.

By evening, he got curious on how things are. He was thrilled to learn that his ideal politician Kejriwal had become the CM by winning the election by a huge margin. He was like.. Oohhooo!! His wife said.. Jee.. relax. You still need some rest for a week. Don't get excited. Praja was still cheering. You don't know dear. I waited for this moment for years. I hope Delhi is now a great place!

His wife and kids didn't show any smile. He got worried. He asked his son. Did you get the WiFi? He nodded left to right. He asked his daughter. Are girls safer now in Delhi? Rapes have stopped? She got tears.. Pappa.. it has gotten worse. Even 2 and 5 year old girls are not left now. Oh! Praja is shocked. He asked his wife. Is Sheila Dikshit, the horribly corrupt woman who ruined Delhi, in Tihar jail? She just looked down. He got furious now. No WiFi.. no safety for women.. no jail for Sheila? What the heck?

After 10 minutes of silence, he continued. Is there a Lokpal? Son nodded no. How about a Lokayukta sending all corrupt to jails? No daddy.. We only got a name-sake Lokayukta a week ago. We had none till now. So far no jail for any corrupt. Praja is furious.. then at least tell me that Arvind's government is working well. No corruption in the MLA circle. Right? His daughter got angry. Pappa.. this Arvind cheated us badly. His MLA gang is full of crooks. Law Minister went to jail for Degree fraud. More are about to go to jail for degree frauds. Former law minister is about to go jail for beating up his wife. His own MLA was caught in corruption needing a firing on live TV - just like for everything involving Kejriwal, his MLA firing also needed TV camera and action! His MLAs are now VIPs with big cars. Kejriwal himself got a 5 bed room bungalow after all preaching earlier of no bungalows. They spent 100s of crores on just giving radio and billboard ads. They kicked out Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and other uncles with whom you were on roads doing dharna earlier. This guy has become a power hungry dictator.. Worse, he has no portfolio under him, so that he can keep doing 24*7 drama across India, while our roads are full of stinking garbage. And there are still lots of slums and they are getting bigger. No new school or hospital in sight. I can't see any new job creation for Engineers, Commerce Graduates or Scientists. Traffic is getting worse. Yamuna is still full of froth. Road rage is very high. In fact, Kejriwal's party law makers like Alka Lamba were seen vandalizing a shop. Nothing pappa.. I repeat nothing.. got better after years of listening to Anna and Kejriwal speeches.

Praja is now really feeling dizzy. After months of coma, what he heard made him even more weaker. What are you telling children? At least tell me that he has not allied with any corrupt politician. His wife got furious now. This guy is an ally of Lalu Yadav's ghatbandhan.. the same chara chor who went to jail!! Worse.. even the 2G scam tainted Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are in the same team for which Kejriwal is campaigning in Bihar! What more you want?

Praja became unconscious!

When he woke up after 10 minutes. His daughter gave lemon juice and told. Pappa.. we got fooled. That Sheila was corrupt, but she was 100 times better than this drama guy. Kejriwal and his irresponsible gang even watched a poor farmer from Rajasthan commit suicide 30 feet in front during a speech, but still didn't stop their speech blaming central government and police. This CM has no respect for the police who protect us. He even called them criminals and "thulla". All he does is keep fighting with police, Lt Governor, Home Minister and Prime Minister. Sometimes he gets mad at press too, in spite of his entire career being built by press and TV. I have never been cheated mentally like this before. He raised our hopes on every corner. Got our votes. We worked with his topi gang on streets for months. Now, all we get is ads using our own money, to blame the central government. We could have done that free, sitting on our sofa.. We Indians are experts in blaming politicians in our homes, for generations. Why did we need a Chief Minister who has no portfolio, spending crores of our money, to blame government that we are experts in blaming ourselves?

Then power went off. It took 5 minutes for the critical machines to get generator power. Mosquitos were biting his tender skin. His wife was worried about Dengue and screaming to put a coil to prevent mosquito bites. By then the exhausted Praja had gone back to coma.

AAP: Lies and U-Turns

AAP is the latest novelty factor in India. TV Media is going 24*7 abuzz with how cool the bunch of activists turned politicians are. Print media is writing laurels for "aam aadmi" finally governing Dilli. Media "pundits" are going ga-ga as to how Arvind Kejriwal's phenomenon will be changing India's political landscape, dislodging the established players like Narendra Modi. And social media's AAP fans are all out to prove how great is this new find for India.

And then I asked after one week of Aam Aadmi Party's government in Dilli, to list out some of their lies, and outright u-turns. Within 2 hours, I got enough material to write this blog. These were tweeted mostly with #AAPLies hash tag on Twitter. Since they are coming in large number, you can check out the tweets with that tag, for the latest info.

All the material provided here are courtesy my Twitter friends. If any item has untruth or half truth in it, please post a comment with the correction. I will review it.

Here we go.. listing the top 10 sections of lies and u-turns.

Section 1: Master lists

Tweep @bechaara openly challenges folks to counter him, after listing some #AAPlies.

‏@SaffronZeppelin shares a very interesting video.

Arvind Kejriwal's famous lies get exposed, amongst others:
"I will never fight elections in my life" 
"I don't want to hold any post in my life" 

Then @shaksingh shares an elaborate list of 15 #AAPlies.

He's quite well versed with these topics, so feel free to challenge him for links, if you feel any of these are incorrect.

Then @ArinKamath shared 5 key u-turns of AAP, proving that they are not necessarily AAM. The most damning one is the #AAPCON government they formed with Congress support.

Section 2: AAP Taking Corrupt Congress Support

‏@RPrasad_7 asked: Why AAP is cheating people that BJP has offered them support? Only Congress offered support, not BJP particularly, when you focus on Congress giving unconditional support to form the government.

Another friend shared a video of Arvind Kejriwal & Yogendra Yadav being caught red-handed by Subramanin Swamy. Hilarious.. watch it.

Then @Purple_Truth shares the real truth of AAP & Congress relationship, poupularly known on the social media as #AAPCON government.

@SachsR also shared a similar #AAPCON drawing, this time from the funny Amul Baby.
"Hand in hand, Aam in Arm?"

Section 3: AAM Hesitating On Sheila Dikshit Corruption Cases

‏@nationalizer shared the most damning thing about how AAP has connived to save Sheila Dikshit's Congress corruption.

AAP had a page on its website called "Pol Khol" meaning expose them.
http://aamaadmiparty.org/PolKhol/Electricity.aspx

At the time of writing this blog, the page was missing. Hence producing the archive that @nationalizer provided.

Why would AAP remove this critical page from their website?

@niranjanprabhu shared a video where Kejriwal is exposed on his flip flop on Sheila.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152108859596346

Another similar expose shared by @chotivalebaba on Dr. Harsha Vardhan's charges and Kejriwal making a disgusting u-turn.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qxI_xdOUuY

@dreamthatworks asked.. AAP said Congress corruption will be probed in 7 days and it is alraedy the 8th day, nothing happened. Why "Mr. Clean"?

@LostProphet77 asked the same. "Sheila Dikshit would be in jail within 7 days of AAP forming Delhi Govt". What happened?

Section 4: "Free" Water

@IamSrivatsanV saved an AAP Busting detail about water.

@gk125 asked - Is AAP Delhi water formula full of leaks?

"The people of Delhi may be in for a rude shock, following the new water pricing formula of AAP. They may have to shell-out 2-3 times more. Where meters are faulty, cost will be even higher"

Read the analysis: http://www.moneylife.in/article/aap-delhi-water-formula-is-full-of-leaks/35822.html

@IamSrivatsanV shared the Kejriwal's waterfront by Surjit S Bhalla, which talks about Reverse Robinhood episode where poor will pay for rich people's water consumption.

"Aap Ki Amir Party" Indian Express writes..

Read analysis here: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/kejriwal-s-waterfront/1215340/0

@ArinKamat shared the so called terms and conditions which make the application of this free water stuff difficult.

Of course, by now, most AAP supporters will be trying to find some material against BJP, instead of trying to defend the drama of AAP.

Section 5: Electricity

@IamSrivatsanV shared a comparison with older tariff. Unless you are very carefully watching the electrical meter, even one unit above 400 units can make you pay more. So this is not truly a power tariff cut that aam aadmi would understand or monitor closely.

Section 6: Rakhi Birla's car being "attacked"

@PawanDande claims, Rakhi Birla planted story of attack on car, while it was hit by cricket ball, even boy apologized, still nautanki & FIR

@TrustBJP shared a video explaining this more:

Why this drama Rakhi ji? First day shared auto, then sleeping in assembly, then getting Innova car, then no security claim, then this drama for personal car...

Section 7: AAP's Anjali Damania, known as "land shark" on social media.

‏@ArinKamath shared the details from Kejriwal's Headlines Today show in March 2013 and what was actually on AAP website (contradiction).

‏@gk125 shared the same video where Kejriwal lied about Anjali Damania. In fact the person who asked the question, tweeted to me on the same!

" She is a volunteer" drama exposed. 

Now the same "volunteer" Anjali, who is accused of being a land shark, against whom Kejriwal refused any probe internally, is Nagpur AAP's candidate in Maharashtra. If Anjali had some self respect, she would not be contesting from the party which disowned her on national TV!

Section 8:  Election Commission Clean Chit

@rameshnswamy shared the truth that EC never giving any clean chit, as claimed by AAP after getting exposed with that Sting operation against Shzia Ilmi, Kumar Vishwas and a few more.

Read: http://news.oneindia.in/new-delhi/election-commission-quashes-aap-claims-of-being-given-clean-chit-1348855.html

According to Election Commissioner HS Brahma the commission has not verified the veracity of the tape. He also added that unless the AAP challenges it legally, no clean chit can be given to it. The party had earlier claimed that the EC had given a clean chit to the party and declared that the sting operation CD was doctored.

Section 9:  Where is JanLokpal?

@ArinKamath asks, where is Jan Lokpal? This was asked on 31st December, but we can understand the delay in forming the government. At least by 6th January some movement should have happened? That too after using Anna Hazare's name in spite of him clearly saying don't use?

Section 10: No Government Car

Coming to Arvind Kejriwal's famous tweet about "we never ever" part of government transport.

@masala_chaas busts that lie too quickly.
In Apr 2013: See the conditions in this video, put by AAP for giving tickets.

And  now in Jan 2014, giving gas guzzling Rs. 15 to 18 lakh (upper range) costing, foreign brand lavish cars to AAP ministers.

NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party Ministers of Delhi, except Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, were today given Toyota Innova cars as official perks.

A number of ministers, including Manish Sisodia, Rakhi Birla and Saurabh Bhardwaj, came to Delhi Assembly complex in official cars.

Asked if coming by such cars was reflective of practising austerity, Kejriwal downplayed it saying the party never said it's ministers will not use official cars.

How convenient!
I have 100s of other tweets and information shared by online friends. But this is enough for now..

Can we really trust such political chameleons?

Strange Ways AAP Gets Surveys Done

I came across this week, a survey on the new Aam Aadmi Party's website. 47% of Dilli folks want to give AAP a chance.. Impressive for a new kid on the block.

But the surprise did not long for long. Started reading it through a bit.

The AAP website said further:

Aam Aadmi Party commissioned Cicero Associates(www.ciceroassociates.in), a New Delhi based consultancy firm, specializing in public opinion polling and survey research, to carry out the second round of a Delhi wide survey of a representative sample of Delhi’s voters.  The first wave of the poll was conducted in February 2013, while the data presented here is from the second wave.

Wait a minute.. we have seen this Cicero name somewhere on Twitter. So it took me to the second step. The website of Cicero Associates. Strangely, they are still "upgrading" the most vital piece of their website, the people who own the company.

That made me more curious, because that survey company claimed that their advice is based on results, and not intentions. If the intention is not important, why is the team page empty? Started searching.

Next I landed up on a news paper website.

Twitter was abuzz with charges about how AAP is a Congress front because it chose a company, which has a Congressman as one of the two directors. In the third phase of the survey, AAP had given itself a 28% vote share and Kejriwal as popular preference for the post of chief minister.

A link leading to an article “Proof that Aam Aadmi Party is a front of Congress, survey is false" on a web-based newswire site claimed that one of the two partners of Cicero Associates & Consultants is an office bearer of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC). The DPCC website on Wednesday showed Madhur’s photo and his Badarpur address.

By now it was truly amusing to me..  How can a company seemingly owned by a Congress person (party or fully), can do a survey projecting "massive" opinion in favour of the new kid in political arena, this AAP? The next step was even more better.

Landed up in that page quoted by the newspaper.

For the past few months, we are being bombarded with a survey in which Aam Aadmi Party has claimed victory in Delhi elections. The survey was done by Yogendra Yadav, using an unknown agency called Cicero Associates & Consultants Private Limited. The numbers claimed in the survey were hard for any agency to achieve. They claimed that the survey was carried out between September 5 and October 5 among all 70 assembly constituencies, covering 1,750 polling booths and 34,425 respondents.

As a data scientist, I am quite aware that modern market research is a science and the results cannot differ much from other surveys done by reliable agencies like AC Neilson. Conducting more than 1,000 surveys in a day seemed to be a no mean feat.

The website of Cicero Associates, which was registered just on May 30, 2013, lists their address as A-166, First Floor, Defence Colony, New Delhi, Delhi, 110024. So the company did not have a public face before May 30, 2013. The snapshot of the page on that day by Archive.org lists a freshly hosted domain. I am quite familiar with Delhi and know that A-block of Defence Colony cannot house so many field agents to conduct a massive survey. So I decided to investigate.

Registrar of Companies data reveals that the authorised signatories of Cicero Associates are Sunit Kumar Madhur with the address of GA-34, Block GA, Pulpeladpur, New Delhi 110 044. The other Director is Dhananjay Joshi with the address of A-7/3 SFS Flats, Saket, New Delhi 110 017. An authorised signatory is the Karta Dharta of the company.
A simple Google Search reveals that A-166 First Floor, Defence Colony has the office of Langjobs, Interpreters India and other businesses. It certainly didn’t look like a market research entity.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee Site lists one of the Directors of Cicero, as a General Secretary - Shri Sunit Madhur, GA-34, Pul Pahladpur, Badarpur, New Delhi-110 044, 9311012007 as a General Secretary. His own twitter profile describes himself as: “Congress worker. Entrepreneur. Only the people who have to compromise& be pragmatic in their daily lives know the value of idealism and romanticism....”

A name and address like that is unique so both are the same set of people.
The other Director is a property dealer running a firm called Intouch Associates revealed from his profile at 99acres.com.

For Aam Aadmi Party, which is dead against Congress, it seems quite strange that it has to choose a dummy market research company, which is owned by a known Congressman to conduct a survey!

By now I was clear as to what was all this fake survey and worse.. the role of AAP as the B team of Congress as so many people on Twitter say. I initially didn't pay much attention to such theories, but looking at the details here, it was not hard to believe so any more. And this screenshot of research posted on that website, with data from Ministry of Corporate Affairs website confirmed that they had indeed a perfect research done. And you can spot at the left bottom corner of the image, a clear solicitation to get someone to youth or main Congress party. Download and zoom the image if you wish to read thoroughly.

And by the time I got to the twitter account of this Sunit Madhur, Director of this mysterious Cicero Associates, it was probably late. He has no bio there.

Now that you have read till here.. tell me honestly. If you were going to topple Sheila Dikshit's Congress government, why would you get your survey done by a firm owned (partly or fully) by a Congress regional General Secretary? Will you get a survey done by a firm owned by BJP General Secretary (hypothetically), if trying to topple Narendra Modi's government in Gujarat? Will you get a survey done by AIADMK affiliate's company if trying to challenge Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu?

Whom are you trying to fool with such "farzi" surveys, Mr. Kejriwal? Worse.. are there still some people who believe that there is no mysterious "hand" behind this sudden hype of a new kid on the block called AAP? :)