ATISHI'S INSURMOUNTABLE TASK AT HAND TO REDEEM AAP'S IMAGE

DELHI has a new Chief Minister and one is not very excited about it.

The day Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal announced that Atishi Marlena would succeed him, with public relations firms working overtime, newspapers were flooded with reports about her Oxford education, her role in improving education in Delhi and putting her in the same category of leaders as the venereable Sushma Swaraj and Sheila Dikshit.

Being from the same gender doesn't make one equal to others who went on to build a stature for themselves in public life. Why Atishi Marlena cannot be compared to Dikshit or Swaraj, we would come to it later but first examine her performance in the education sector.Her entry in the Kejriwal cabinet was late and she came to occupy the vacancy created following the resignations of Manish Sisodia and Satyender Jain, both of whem went to the jail.

Atishi's entry into AAP was courtesy psephologist and activist Yogendra Yadav.The current Delhi Chief Minister's parents and Yadav did only have a common background but also ideological moorings. People from such ideological anchorage have loosely been identified by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ideologues as urban naxals.