Are Kejriwal and Bhushan on the same page on business policy?

Is Arvind Kejriwal's view on business different from the Prashant Bhushan's view on it? On the face of it, it seems the two top leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are not on the same page.

In an interview to Business Standard, AAP leader Prashant Bhushan says that in areas of food, education and health, government needs to be there as the poor may not be able to afford it at market price.

In his address to the Confederation of Indian Industry the other day, Kejriwal said: "Government has no business in business. Government should not do business. All this should be left to the private sector."

But hear what Prashant Bhushan had to say on this to BS: "Water and electricity distribution are not meant to be businesses. Though these are utilities, which are supposed to be run in public interest and are monopolies, they have been turned into businesses of a very corrupt kind where you have a private monopoly created which can extort anything from the people and the people have no choice," he said.

AAP leader Prashant Bhushan. PTI

Bhushan says that the party is not against the public-private partnership (PPP) model, but against private monopolies in the guise of PPP. "I am against this loot of public resources and creation of private monopoly in the guise of PPP," he told BS.

During the start of AAP's campaign last year, Bhushan had blamed privatisation of electricity distribution in Delhi for the rampant corruption and thus the high prices. "After this privatisation of electricity distribution in Delhi and the creation of private monopolies in the guise of public private partnerships (PPPs)… this whole model is functioning in a manner where there are frauds, fabrications, forgeries at multiple levels which have the effect of cheating their consumers to the extent of half of the electricity bills they are paying."

But clearly there is some difference between what Arvind Kejriwal and Bhushan think.

In an address to the CII, Kejriwal said that some sectors need to be privatised. "But we cannot allow monopolies. That breeds corruption," he explained. The question is: if private monopolies are bad, are public monopolies good?

While Bhushan believes that that electricity distribution should be with the public sector, Kejriwal had said in his CII conference that the AAP in not against privatisation of power companies. "But we need to evolve the right model," he had said.

Bhushan says he is unsure whether a right model can be developed.

Bhushan also said that be it education, cricket, or airports--government presence is necessary. He said that such sectors should not be turned into a business for profit making.

The AAP leader said that BCCI needs to be regulated as  it's a body which is "utilising government facilities like cricket stadia which are on land owned by the government." Bhushan also believes that airports should be nationalised. "If you leave it to one private firm, they can extort any amount of money they want from the airlines," he said.

Read Bhushan's interview to Business Standard here.