Cough gone, AAP's Arvind Kejriwal gets his tune back

BENGALURU: He may be maintaining a stony silence on the implosion the Aam Aadmi Party ( AAP) seems to be suffering, but that hasn’t stopped Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to belt out a tune or two at an antakshari programme organised by patients at Jindal Nature Cure Institute in Bengaluru, where he is currently undergoing treatment.

Chief hospital administrator K K Ghosh told ET that Kejriwal has been showing a marked improvement and has been able to hold longish conversations without coughing (his chronic cough is one of the ailments he is being treated for). “For a day or two he kept to himself and preferred to do his prescribed kriyas in his lodgings, but later he has been participating in activities organized by patients including an antakshari programme where he even reportedly sang,” said Ghosh.

Unlike the mixed reviews his slightly off key performance received at his oath taking ceremony in February, this performance was termed “quite good” by other patients. According to sources in AAP here, local leader Prithvi Reddy met Kejriwal on the day he arrived in Bengaluru, but “no one else has gone to meet him, since he has desired privacy.”

ET spoke to former Infosys man V Balakrishnan, who too said that he had not met Kejriwal despite the brouhaha going on in Delhi. “Arvind is on a private visit and I didn’t want to intrude on that,” he said. Hospital sources did confirm though that the media circus that accompanies Kejriwal was an issue that was discussed with him.

Hospital PRO, A K Sreedhar said that apart from some photographs for which Kejriwal posed on Wednesday, the CM has not shown any inclination to meet anyone.