It is true that the whole country is still waiting for achhe din. Now, you can either passively wait for the achhe din to arrive or do something which will force achhe din to visit your quarters. The aam aadmi may or may not be in a position to bring home achhe din for himself, but the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership is surely full of capable guys who can do something about it if they make up their mind. And made up their mind they have. The Delhi State MLAs have unanimously decided that “enough is not enough” and have taken the matters into their hands.
AAP leaders are humans like you and me and they feel, like all of us, that their salaries and perks need a revision (upward, obviously). Well, honestly, there is nothing wrong with that. Show me anyone who doesn’t feel that he/she is (grossly) underpaid, right from the Class IV employees to the Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India in the babu-land and from trainees on shop-floor to the (professional) Managing Directors in private sector. But not all of us are lucky enough to get our way. Even the mighty Cabinet Secretary has to wait for the Pay Commission to recommend revision of pay, something which happens once in ten long years. He may make his suggestions regarding the revisions that he would like to see, but finally he has to accept whatever decisions are taken.
MLAs of the Delhi Assembly have, by an overwhelming majority, decided to rectify their penurious status and given themselves a raise which shall hopefully pull them above the poverty line.
But all this is only for the billions of mere mortals like you and me. The Chosen Ones (ironically, they are chosen by mere mortals like you and me) choose to tread a different path. No Pay Commissions for them and no ungainly haggling over rate of inflation and Dearness Allowance for them! Just appoint some “independent committee” headed by a retired bureaucrat who knows which side of the slice of baked dough has a thick layer of golden yellow fat applied to it and who is only too happy to echo his masters’ voices.
MLAs of the Delhi Assembly have, by an overwhelming majority, decided to rectify their penurious status and given themselves a raise which shall hopefully pull them above the poverty line. The MLAs will henceforth get Rs 2.35 lakh per month instead of the paltry Rs 88,000 they were getting earlier and, thereby, maybe just keep the wolf off their doorsteps. Phew! Thank God!
Looks like the BJP guys themselves don’t believe that achhe din aane waale hai.
AAP, which enjoys a strength of 67 in a house of 70, was expecting that the bill ratifying the proposed amendments to their pay-packets would sail through without any opposition. But the spoilsport BJP MLAs (numbering two) tried to oppose the bill and had to be shouted down. Looks like the BJP guys themselves don’t believe that achhe din aane waale hai.
My friend, Guy Wise, says that all this gives a different twist to the classic Lucknowi tale of two nawabs missing their train in their time-honored protocol, “Pehle aap” ,”Pehle aap”. Here we have a bunch of modern-day nawabs clamouring “Pehle AAP”, “Pehle AAP” as they all jump onto the gravy train.
- NaMo And DeMo - June 29, 2017
