Congress, BJP or AAP. Sandeep Dikshit on the options ahead of him

"...on the hunt for greener pastures".

This is how Swati Chaturvedi, a journalist I respect, defined my current state of employment in an article in DailyO on June 16, 2016.

I read this article and wanted to respond to it since it slotted me into the category of an opportunity-seeking professional politician, but I dithered. However, now that Sheila Dikshit is the Congress' face for the Uttar Pradesh elections, I believe it is important that I put on record what I am doing and thinking.

It amuses me that there is still a journalist who believes what I may do is of any relevance.

Maybe it was said at that time to put a question mark on Sheila Dikshit and her relationship with the Congress and its leadership. Because she remains a source of grave concern and fear for the current leadership of the Delhi Congress.

Also read: All that Congress will do to go down fighting this UP elections

This leadership has prospered by being her counterpoint, and has made abusing her its rallying point, and it is expected that the paid media and Congress organs will be used against Sheila Dikshit. But seriously, should someone really bother about what I am up to?

Anyway, since someone is interested in the "greener pastures" I am looking for, let me talk about them.

There are serious realities that I, and perhaps many others, am facing. On the one hand, there is a slow, steady and insidious rise of right-wing thinking arising from the economy, and then as a natural culmination, the social, religious and cultural world.

Also read: Congress in UP is all talk, no show

Neo-liberal economics would lead to a rise of fundamentalism and majoritarianism (whatever the proponents of such changes even within the Congress may otherwise believe).

Simultaneously there is a deliberate, planned and powerful process going on to discredit and shame policies of equity, distributive justice, rights of development, access to basic amenities, and to weaken and ultimately abandon the role of the government as a regulator and overseer in the matters of environment, profiteering, natural resource management, public financial institutions and so on.

Then there is the attempt to change the nature, style, content and commitment of crucial institutions, both handling and supporting democracy and rights, and those in the sphere of academia, culture, knowledge, and which promote thinking, liberal values, humanitarian outlook, and scientific ways of searching, believing and behaving.

It is the destruction of these green pastures that gets me worried and troubled, as it worries many others.

I seek paths and action for the restoration of these disappearing pastures.

These paths are political, and will be used by a much larger coalition of political formations, social and institutional combinations, strategic alliances between ideological groupings, and people who believe strongly in the leadership, but not the primacy of politics to fight this battle.

My greener pastures are my humble attempts to weave these coalitions together, howsoever feeble or trivial they may appear.

The political vehicle of the Congress is the pivot around which a large coalition can take shape. There is no other green pasture (unfortunately to many in the Congress, all this is not even comprehensible. They are too busy capturing the Congress, while the "other side" captures India and its mindset).

Coming to the green pastures of Delhi, let me also have my say here.

There are three choices. The Congress, which I believe in, the AAP, and the BJP.

The Delhi Congress presents a difficult picture to me. It is led by a person who has consistently and directly attacked Sheila Dikshit, with his stories, innuendoes and defamatory propaganda.

He prepared a false synopsis of the CAG's Commonwealth report, putting in fabricated charges, and sent them to a media house even before the CAG report was published, and that media house broadcast these allegations.

Of course, the actual report contained none of these charges, but the damage, as planned was done.

The same game was played with electricity rates, power metres, and so on.

An atmosphere was deliberately created to discredit Sheila Dikshit. Even as late as three-four weeks back, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) leader was cajoling journalists to hype up the water tanker issue. When such a person is rewarded and placed at the helm of affairs of the Delhi Congress where does that leave any space for me to graze in?

Then there is the AAP.

The AAP built its entire campaign on nearly the same things that these so-called Delhi Congress leaders were trying to popularise.

I don't blame the AAP for picking up the corruption cauldron, since it was Congress leaders themselves who had heated it up. The difference is that the AAP's prima donna is a more consummate liar.

As the public facade of this party cracks, it has taken to all the "good habits" of Indian political parties, especially the smaller regional parties, much faster than any of its predecessors.

The moral and financial integrity of the AAP leaders is collapsing.

The AAP leadership and its followers are seen as hungry, manipulative and petty like those of any other party, but the AAP surpasses all others in its failure to deliver good governance.

The more serious issue is that it is a closet Sanghi group, and gives a perfect mask for other closet Sanghis in the media and academia to work their agenda through it.

The third option, the BJP, in any form or style is anathema.

It's not just because I am an atheist, but primarily because of my support for social democracy, love for a pluralist, liberal, open and just society, and the pathetic intellect, and pitiable logic that makes up this party and the Sangh Parivar makes it impossible to survive in it.

That leaves me in a quandary.

I am in the Indian National Congress, but as far as its Delhi unit is concerned, I cannot accept a leadership whose sole objective was to discredit the Congress government in Delhi under Sheila Dikshit, which ultimately led to destroying the party itself (interestingly, the Congress is staging a comeback on the strength of the 15 years of its rule in Delhi, which was discredited by the very person who is reaping that benefit now).

As far as the Congress set up at the national level is concerned, I am informed that I am not particularly liked for my rebellious nature and irreverent attitude.

So where does that leave me? When my own party has put me out to graze, what greener pastures do I look for?

So like all sensible cattle, I roam around, picking grass from wherever I get it with honour and self-respect.

Wherever I can, in my own small way, I am trying to counter the influence of the Sangh, and trying to do what I can to help the Congress as it rebuilds itself to claim its primacy in Indian politics.