When Arvind declared that he won’t be celebrating his 50th birthday owing to death of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former prime minister of India. It appeared to be a great humanitarian step and which was widely published by media within minutes of its declaration[1].
Arvind too retweeted some of the news article, depicting his purportedly great humanitarian gesture.
But then media started coming up with pictures of Kejriwal cutting a multi-tired colossal cake. I initially thought it was fake. How could a chief minister bite his own words?
But it wasn’t a fake picture. It happens to be a true picture.
Certain people started giving justification that the birthday celebration happened in the morning. Does that mean Arvind announced his decision to not to celebrate his birthday after having actually celebrated it already? It’s like announcing a fast after a heavy morning breakfast. It’s like calling for abstinence from alcohol after a couple of Patiala peg in the morning. Does it make sense?
He could have celebrated his birthday with a small cake like he has been celebrating over the years.
But strangely he chose a cake 10X the size he is used to. And this is just a week after controversy of Kejriwal racking by a massive bill on taxpayers while on a visit to oath taking ceremony of CM Kumaraswamy[2].
It’s clear that Arvind consciously did it for scoring political brownie points over somebody’s death. I mean he could have decided to celebrate his birthday without a fuss, but he chose to falsely claim to have not celebrated his birthday. Forget about calling it a human gesture if somebody calls it an apotheosis of saprophytic politics, I may not disagree with him.
It almost reminded me of the farmer Gajendra incident of 2015, when the poor farmer inadvertently hanged himself from a tree in a Kejriwal’s rally and he continued to make a speech. Arvind had to apologize for his act of inhumane indifference after a public outcry[3].
Arvind Kejriwal makes unconditional apology for continuing with speech after Gajendra Singh’s death
I won’t be surprised if Arvind apologize for this incident. that will rather be a humane gesture. The Indian public will be watching.
In nutshell, I want to categorically say it was not an act to show humanity. It appears to be a political gimmick.
Footnotes
[1] Kejriwal cancels birthday celebrations over former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s critical health