Former Delhi Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Atishi, has been embroiled in a controversy over her alleged remark about the ‘gurus’.
In the video, which is in circulation, the AAP leader is apparently taunting the BJP government for its various actions and “politically motivated” programmes.
However, in the flow of her speech, she used two sentences in the same breath that were used by BJP and Congress leaders to their own advantage and to put the AAP on the defensive.
The AAP is not known to take things lying down. The party straightaway came out with an outright denial, saying that Atishi had not used the word ‘Guru’ in her speech and that it was allegedly added as the actual video was “doctored”. The State Forensic Laboratory, which is under the Punjab government, took no time in issuing a clean chit to Atishi, saying that in her original video she did not utter the word ‘Guru’ and that the video in circulation was fake.
The Punjab Police also wasted no time in registering an FIR against several political leaders from the BJP and the Congress, including Kapil Mishra, a minister in Delhi’s BJP government, Sukhpal Khaira and Pargat Singh, both senior Congress leaders and MLAs from Punjab, for allegedly sharing the “fake video”.
However, they were not the only ones who shared the video. It was shared by several leaders of various political parties, including the Congress, the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal, from their social media handles for the obvious reason that it provided them a handle against the AAP.
Whoever advised the AAP government to register an FIR in the matter did no good either to the party or to Atishi. Getting a clean chit issued from the SFL will not be of much help since the video is already in the public domain. Depending on how the issue is dealt with, the video may even go for further cross-examination in some other forensic laboratory.
Since the AAP government in Punjab has taken strong action with the registration of an FIR, there are bound to be reactions from rivals. The Speaker of the Delhi Assembly has already issued a ‘breach of privilege’ notice to the Punjab Police, including the Commissioner of Police, Jalandhar.
The AAP government in Punjab simply overreacted in the matter. In the age of social media, it is difficult to change public opinion with denials or punitive actions to prove your point. Rather, such actions only reinforce the already prevailing perception among the public that the government is trying to hide something by resorting to punitive steps like the registration of an FIR.
In fact, the matter had already started going into the background. It came into the limelight only after the registration of an FIR by the Jalandhar Police against some political leaders. It provided opposition parties a handle to counter the AAP and bring the issue back into public discourse. Such issues are better left untouched and unnoticed until the public forgets about them. Any intervention only reignites public interest, and that is what has happened in the current case as well after the registration of an FIR.
While there are not many buyers for the AAP government’s version of the issue, at the same time there is a general perception that what Atishi said, or what is being attributed to her, rightly or wrongly, was not intentional on her part and was just a “slip of the tongue” in the flow of her speech. Both the AAP and Atishi could have immediately clarified that whatever was being attributed to her was not intentional and that its connotation was not what was being made out by opposition parties. The matter would have settled down then and there.
Sometimes the best players in the game end up committing silly mistakes. The AAP has mastery in generating and controlling public discourse and narratives. It has a powerful brigade of social media professionals who are on the job round the clock to peddle its narrative. But it is not necessary that one should always be proactive and aggressive.
Sometimes wisdom lies in retreat and biding one’s time. In the current case, the AAP resorted to its characteristic aggressive approach of outright denial and the registration of an FIR, apparently to reinforce the perception that the video was fake and also as a warning against further sharing of the video. This has only further complicated matters and created an avoidable situation for the ruling party in Punjab.
For the AAP, the controversy could not have come at a worse time as it has entered the last lap of its five-year tenure that began in 2022. Anti-incumbency sentiment in the state is already at its peak, which leads to a lack of credibility, and people do not take the government at face value. That is why the AAP will need to do much more, and much differently, than merely registering an FIR against those who shared the controversial video.
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