New Delhi: For the first time in six years, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party National Convener Arvind Kejriwal will go on a holiday with his family.
Kejriwal has been unable to take a break with his family since the eruption of the anti-corruption movement in 2011.
Starved of time with his family, he is certainly looking forward to flying out of Delhi for Andaman and Nicobar on Saturday. Kejriwal has kept his date with vipasana and naturopathy sessions but this would be a rare family holiday.
Interestingly, he would be accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and his family as well. A short trip of just four days, Kejriwal and Sisodia are expected back in Delhi in the New Year, on January 2.
AAP is expected to announce its three nominees for the Rajya Sabha on January 3, a day after Kejriwal returns to Delhi with a meeting of the political affairs committee squeezed in between. The last date of nominations of candidates is January 5.
Far from Delhi and its incessant lobbying, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands could be the perfect setting for Kejriwal to make up his mind on the Rajya Sabha nominees and discuss with Sisodia.
This is the first time that the party will have three voices in the Rajya Sabha by virtue of its majority in Delhi. Top sources within the party have independently indicated that a final decision on the names is yet to be taken. Not just that, the party is yet to make up its mind on whether it should bank on ‘eminent professionals’ outside of AAP, or should it also send one of their own to the upper house.
The party has been in talks with a handful of people from diverse fields, including law. It is hunting for credible voices that can challenge the BJP and take on the Prime Minister in the upper house on issues of economy and communal harmony. This is important as Kejriwal, in a re-think of strategy, has held himself back from attacking the Prime Minister directly. It is also looking for a strong legal voice.
AAP has four MPs in the Lok Sabha but two of them are dissidents. In the Rajya Sabha, the NDA government does not have the numbers, and that, a source said, will give more opportunity to AAP to intervene on important issues, the party gets to make its presence audible. “It is unfortunate that we could not utilize our presence fully in the Lok Sabha and that will not be repeated,” said a source within AAP.
There has been churning within AAP as Kumar Vishwas ,a member of Political Affairs Committee has made no secret about his claim to a Rajya Sabha seat with his supporters even pitching a tent in the party office. However, the chances of the poet making it are next to negligible. Managing the ambitions of prominent party faces and their views on nominating people and lack of consensus on names from outside is perhaps driving Kejriwal to tread cautiously.
Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had earlier turned down AAP offer of a Rajya Sabha seat.
Comments
0 comment