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The Aam Aadmi Party government is Delhi is all about failed and false promises, corruption and administrative incompetence
AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal. (PTI photo)
Arvind Kejriwal has repeatedly failed to fulfill key promises. The former Chief Minister of Delhi had promised to bring down power tariffs, provide clean drinking water, improve the education system, enhance healthcare, ensure a clean environment, remove landfills, prioritise safety of women, offer housing for slum dwellers, and clean the Yamuna. Kejriwal had in the past also promised to open 1,000 Mohalla Clinics but failed to do so. In fact, most clinics that were opened are in a dilapidated state with no doctors or medicines, providing refuge to stray cattle and anti-social elements. Fake pathology and radiology tests have been conducted at Mohalla Clinics and payments made to private labs in the name of referrals, as per reports. Mohalla Clinics prescribed pathology tests for nearly 65,000 “ghost patients” from February to December 2023, as per the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB). Also, nearly 63 per cent of the phone numbers of patients who had supposedly registered, were found to be either invalid or belonged to people who had never ever visited a Mohalla Clinic.
As per the ACB, analysis of one of the lab’s associated with Mohalla clinics showed that 12,457 tests were conducted where the patient’s mobile number was not entered; 25,732 tests where the mobile number was ‘zero’; 913 tests with fake mobile numbers; and 2,467 tests with mobile numbers that were repeated over 80 times for different patients. The worst part of Kejriwal’s failed health model is that, driven by sheer hubris, he refused to implement the Modi government’s flagship health insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat, which has till date benefitted over 86.7 million people in various parts of India. Kejriwal deliberately deprived the citizens of Delhi from the Ayushman scheme, simply because it was an initiative by the Modi government.
Let us now examine Kejriwal’s education model. Contrary to popular perception, the Kejriwal regime shut down 29 Bal Pratibha Vikas schools, which affected thousands of students. Classes for grades 6 to 10 in these schools have already been discontinued, with grades 11 and 12 starting to close this year, in 2025. In the 2023-24 academic year, over 100,000 students in Class 9 and nearly 52,000 students in Class 11 failed. In total, nearly 300,000 students failed across these two classes over two years, only to be expelled or pressured into enrolling in correspondence courses.
Also, mismanagement in the construction of school buildings has been rampant. A sum of Rs 45 crore was spent on building a School of Specialised Excellence (SOSE) school in Dariyapur Kalan village, but the school has been closed with no students or staff enrolled for over four years now. Similarly, a Rs 50 crore building in Shahbad Dairy, constructed to accommodate 6,000 students, was left unusable due to waterlogging caused by poor construction, despite repairs. These projects have cost taxpayers crores of rupees, but they remain abandoned, serving no purpose.
Clearly, the Delhi government’s education model is mired in a web of lies, deceit and corruption. Like many of the education institutions and universities under the Kejriwal government, 12 colleges affiliated with Delhi University have reached a state of near collapse, as timely funds for 12 colleges over the last decade were never released. Also, in the last ten years, the Arvind Kejriwal government did not establish a single new college. Teachers and staff in these 12 government colleges have rarely received their salaries on time or in full.
In his 2015 manifesto, Kejriwal promised ration cards, but till date has not issued a single ration card. Worse still, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi supplied free ration to over 81 crore people every single month across the country during the Covid pandemic, Kejriwal falsely took credit for these efforts of the Modi government. Even the 768 bed multi-speciality hospital at Burari, inaugurated in July 2020, came about thanks to PM Modi’s efforts but Kejriwal was quick to do the ribbon cutting to usurp all credit. Speaking of electricity tariffs, it is the BJP’s persistent efforts which pressured Kejriwal into reducing the Power Purchase Adjustment Charges (PPAC) on electricity bills by 50 per cent. The BJP government would aim to abolish surcharges altogether, when it forms the government in Delhi.
The Modi government introduced electric buses in Delhi, helping reduce pollution, which had turned the city into a gas chamber, thanks to Kejriwal’s negligence. After announcing the setting up of over 50 smog towers, Kejriwal set up just two smog towers—one in the Connaught Place area and another in Anand Vihar—but both these smog towers have been non-operational since 2021. Every year, the former Delhi CM blames fire-crackers and the Hindu festival of Diwali when the AQI crosses 550. The hard fact is, the dangerously high levels of air pollution in Delhi have little to do with Diwali but a lot to do with stubble (paraali) burning, in the nearby state of Punjab, also ruled by the AAP.
If it is stubble burning in winters, during monsoons, it is heavy rainfall leading to waterlogging that even led to the deaths of 62 people last year. Who can forget the young lives lost year after torrential rains, simply because a few IAS coaching centres had been given NOC by the Delhi government to operate from basements of rickety buildings in Delhi’s old Rajinder Nagar, flouting basic safety standards? Had the AAP dispensation repaired the sewer lines and the drainage network, the multiple deaths due to the drain burst last year could have been avoided.
Asha Kiran is a Delhi government-run facility for the “mentally challenged” and comes under its Social Welfare department. The department is currently without a head following the resignation of Raaj Kumar Anand. Last year, 14 female inmates of Asha Kiran died due to starvation and unhygienic living conditions, but the Delhi CM, as always, blamed the LG. How can LG be blamed for the unfortunate deaths at Asha Kiran, which is being run by the D government? Speaking of women, an aide of Arvind Kejriwal, Bibhav Kumar, accused of assaulting Rajya Sabha MP Swati Maliwal, was granted bail last year by the Supreme Court. The apex Court, however came down heavily at the manner in which Maliwal was assaulted, that too at the former CM’s house and in the presence of the former CM and his wife, Sunita Kejriwal. How can the AAP talk of women empowerment when its convener Arvind Kejriwal could not even stand up for Maliwal,when she was beaten black and blue? Worse, after the assault,AAP leaders mocked Maliwal,instead of castigating Bibhav Kumar.
The most damning reflection of Kejriwal’s misgovernance, however, is that he turned a revenue surplus Delhi into a revenue deficit one, with a deficit of Rs 1,495 crore. Also, the Delhi Jal Board which was managed by Kejriwal’s cohorts for the longest time, turned it from a profit making entity, into a loss making one over the past ten years, with the tanker mafia in Delhi running amok, leaving Delhi-ites starved of even the most basic need, that is, clean, drinking water.
The Kejriwal government has powers over most domains except for public order, police and land. Water, sanitation, public works, health, education, pollution, social welfare, irrigation, flood control, labour, employment, cooperatives, tourism, planning, finance, urban development, food & supply and general administration, all come under the Kejriwal government’s ambit. Then how on earth can the ex-CM of Delhi blame the LG or the Modi government or the nearby State of Haryana, each time disaster strikes in each of the aforesaid areas, which he and his cabinet are singularly responsible for?
Power without responsibility and power without accountability is what the Kejriwal model epitomizes. Even something as basic as garbage removal has not been done effectively. Local drains remain unattended to and garbage mountains keep getting higher, with Ghazipur landfill, being a case in point. The poor condition of the road between Nangloi and Tikri Border is a classic example of how despite getting massive funds from the Modi government for underpasses, no work was done, due to corruption by the AAP MLAs. Of late, Kejriwal, at rallies, has been tom-tomming about the 12 lakh jobs he supposedly created in the last few years. But guess what? In response to a RTI query it was stated that the job portal, “Rozgar Bazaar” launched on July 27, 2020, has been dysfunctional for over four years. If the portal itself was not working and no new online registrations of job seeking youth ever happened, how on earth did Kejriwal end up creating 12 lakh jobs?
There are simply too many examples which showcase that the Kejriwal model is a sham and an embarrassing hoax. For instance, in the last few years, the Delhi Police often ends up spending money like it did in 2017, whereby Rs 2.5 crore was spent to install temporary CCTV cameras and rent 600 CCTVs, on the eve of Independence day celebrations. AAP, in its election manifesto of 2015, had promised 15 lakh CCTVs in Delhi. Ten years hence, Kejriwal has not even installed one-fifth of that number. The Kejriwal model is eventually all about promising the moon and delivering zilch.
The Delhi High Court had in 2020 asked the Kejriwal regime to process claims of people who lost their lives and of those who were grievously injured in the Shaheen Bagh riots of 2020. Out of Rs 153 crore set aside for claims, only Rs 21 crore has been disbursed till date, which means 87 per cent of the “claim money” is yet to be disbursed. Even the dead have not been spared by the AAP!
The latest misguided salvo aimed at the BJP by Kejriwal is that “Haryana was releasing poison into the Yamuna” and “there was an attempt of genocide in the Capital.” The Election Commission has prima facie found that the AAP convener’s allegations about poisoning of the Yamuna river tantamount to promoting disharmony and enmity between different groups and overall public disorder and unrest even by a sober interpretation. The EC has posed five questions to Kejriwal: (1) What kind of poison was mixed by the government of Haryana in the Yamuna river. (2) The supporting evidence about quantity, nature and manner of detecting the poison which could have caused genocide. (3) The location where poison was detected. (4) Which engineers of Delhi Jal Board detected it and how and where. (5) What methodology those engineers employed in stopping poisonous water from entering NCT of Delhi. Instead of answering EC’s specific queries, Kejriwal has been harping about a ppm level of over 7 in the Yamuna, whereas experts have vouched for the fact that between October-February every year, ppm levels invariably rise due to reduced flow of water.
The moot point is this: The Modi government allocated Rs 8,500 crore, of which Rs 7,200 crore was disbursed to the AAP government. Why could the Delhi government not buy new water tanks and set up water treatment plants to treat industrial waste? Surely Rs 7,200 crore is not a small amount. The issue is not lack of funds. The issue with Kejriwal is lack of vision and lack of willingness to work.
More recently, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report revealed that the total cost of renovating Kejriwal’s official residence, referred to as “Sheesh Mahal”, had ballooned to Rs 33.66 crore—far exceeding the initial estimate of Rs 7.9 crore. According to the CAG, the renovation, which began in 2020, included luxury items such as an 88-inch OLED TV costing Rs 28.9 lakh, 10 other OLED TVs priced at Rs 43.9 lakh, a high-end refrigerator worth Rs 3.2 lakh and a jacuzzi, sauna & spa facilities costing Rs 19.5 lakh.
The renovation also included seven servant quarters, costing an additional Rs 19.8 crore. The ‘Sheesh Mahal’ is a stark reminder of Kejriwal’s duplicity, hypocrisy and how a man who vouched to never touch a “sarkaari bangla and gaadi”, has today no qualms in spending millions on jarring opulence.
When Delhi-ites were battling Covid, the ex-CM was busy distributing liquor licences and renovating his lavish ‘Sheesh Mahal’ and that too with taxpayer money. Speaking on the issue, the CAG report says the AAP government inflicted a loss of over Rs 2,026 crore to Delhi’s exchequer. Remember, the Aam Aadmi Party promised to build schools, colleges, hospitals and highways, but instead, liquor shops were opened with brazen impunity.
The AAP government’s 10 years in Delhi is filled with one scam after another. A government (AAP) with eight ministers, fifteen legislators and one MP either in jail, or out on bail, including the former deputy Chief Minister and former Chief Minister of Delhi, is unprecedented in independent India. The AAP model’s very edifice is built on corruption, lies, apathy for commoners, shoddy execution, failed and false promises and administrative incompetence of the worst kind.
Sanju Verma is an economist, national spokesperson for BJP and bestselling author of ‘The Modi Gambit’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.