Arvind Kejriwal has resigned as Delhi’s Chief Minister (CM) after barely two months in office, when he failed to get an anti-corruption bill passed from the Delhi Assembly. Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) joined hands to block the anti-corruption bill on constitutional grounds, since such a bill would have to be passed nationally. Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung had apprised Kejriwal of the fate the bill could encounter. Kejriwal has however blamed the Congress Party and the BJP for coming together allegedly in support of corruption, since he had named India’s leading business tycoon Mukesh Ambani and Congress’s Sheila Dikshit, his predecessor, in an FIR regarding graft cases. Since Kejriwal’s government in Delhi was dependent on Congress, he thought it wise to step down before the Congress withdrew its support. Kejriwal, who had entered the political arena propagating the interests of the common man, translated as Aam Admi (the name of his party as well), has been on a rollercoaster ever since his coming to power on a platform of eradicating corruption from Indian politics. He drew strength from the latent aspiration of a common man who is fed up of political corruption. In his speech, shortly before resigning, Kejriwal said, “They tell us we don’t know how to govern; listen, acting against the corrupt is true governance.” The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had won 28 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly, less than the BJP’s 31, but formed the new government under Kejriwal with support from Congress. On assuming power as the CM he had predicted that his government would not last for 48 hours; in the end it completed 49 days. The Aam Aadmi Party is all set to contest on over 350 seats in the coming Lok Sabha polls in India due in April/May. Kejriwal’s disconnect from reality eventually saw his ouster. Entrenched as corruption is in nearly every system, with the only difference that in some places it has systemic or institutionalised cover while in others like India and us, all caution is thrown to the wind, it is difficult if not virtually impossible to sweep it away, that too in one stroke. The reality, ugly as it might sound, is that a complete overhaul of corruption is less possible than making the system effective to the extent that it does not impinge upon the rights of a common man. Our Kejriwal, Imran Khan, has also come to power on the back of anti-corruption slogans. He might well have a lesson here to learn that unrealistic political expectations would gradually make his efforts ineffective. *