The AAP has been in power in Delhi since 2013 but its government is yet to show its appetite for governance
Elections are occasions for the people to hold political parties accountable for the promises they make. There is a greater awareness among the people now about the performance of the
political parties. The last few years
have helped aspirational democracy to gain prominence among the people. Identity politics across the country is
taking the backseat with the advent of
the aspirational democracy. Performance and the credibility of the political
leadership are now crucial factors for the people when they decide to cast their votes in favour of the candidates of their
choices.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been a political laboratory. Political veterans have come out of MCD politics, who served the country in the later part of their careers. Thus MCD elections should not be taken lightly. Also, Delhi being the national capital, the efficiency of the MCD holds out for the local body governance across the country. Delhi has a population in excess of two crores, which is larger than the population of several states in the country. The MCD is the first contact for such a vast population, which makes it incumbent upon the people to exercise utmost caution while exercising their franchise.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been in power in Delhi since 2013. Nine years have gone by and the AAP
government is yet to show its appetite for governance. The AAP could not grow
out of its compulsive politics of freebies. The Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit took
the shortcut to power in the national
capital. The AAP claimed to be the
proponents of alternative politics. But the party which used the Anna Hazare
platform to launch the political campaign has not been able to show what alternative politics the party brought to the national polity.
Delhi is a city of multiple authorities. Land and police are with the Central government. Water, electricity, roads, tourism, health, education are with the city government. The MCD looks after the subjects of town planning, roads, sanitation, primary health, primary education, and civic amenities. By the nature of the national capital, an incumbent government in Delhi has to act most responsibly to bring all stakeholders onboard for the larger good of the people. All the agencies have to demonstrate symbiotic relations to work in unison without bringing political differences in their ways for the welfare of the people.
But political anarchism has been the religion of the AAP. Kejriwal remains a compulsive anarchist. He cannot have working relations with the lieutenant governor of Delhi, who, according to the charter of the Delhi government, is the head of the administration. The Delhi LG will go by the rule book to ensure that there is no miscarriage of the governance. He will weigh all aspects before approving the proposals sent by the Kejriwal-led Council of Ministers in the national capital.
But the last 13 years have shown that the Kejriwal-led administration has no respect for the institutions. The Delhi Chief Minister has on several occasions encouraged his ministers and MLAs to bad-mouth the Delhi LG. This amounts to revolt against the Constitutional arrangements. A political party, which suffers from acute lack of discipline, cannot be worthy of the people's trust to work in a Constitutional arrangement. The AAP, thus, has set a bad precedent for the political parties, which may take cues from the working style of Kejriwal and his ministers to disobey the Constitutional bodies.
The AAP claims to have changed the face of education in Delhi, but the facts suggest something else. Kejriwal can indulge in marketing a few schools to cover up the rank non-performance in Delhi in the education field. Eighty per cent of the Delhi schools don't have science teachers for class X-XII. The AAP had promised to open new schools, but the city government could not open even one despite the Delhi Development Authority already having allotted land for the purpose. Schools in the rural parts of Delhi are without adequate teachers and amenities. The future of millions of students has been badly affected because of the rank non-performance of the Kejriwal government.
Worse is the fact that the Delhi government didn't recruit the required teachers in the national capital for the optimum utilisation of the school infrastructure. Same is the case with the hospitals. There has been no recruitment of doctors and paramedic staff in the Delhi hospitals. Doctors are mostly taken on contract in the city hospitals and are exploited with adverse terms of employment, as they work extra hours without being adequately compensated. This is definitely not the mark of the proponent of an alternative politics where the two critical responsibilities -- education and health -- are starved of the required manpower. Evidently, this is being done as the Kejriwal government is diverting the budgets of the education and health for advertisement purposes to promote the AAP in states where the party contests elections.
The anarchist politics of the AAP has badly affected the people of Delhi. During the grave crisis posed by the outbreak of the Covid-19, Delhi government abandoned all its responsibilities and Chief Minister and his ministers locked themselves in their homes for fear of catching the virus. It was left for the Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah to step in and set up facilities and infrastructure to serve the health emergency needs of the people.
In fact, the Delhi government, which has a clear responsibility to check black marketing of goods, failed comprehensively when people in the city paid hefty amounts to buy oxygen cylinders. Kejriwal has blood on his hands for letting people in the city die for lack of beds, oxygen cylinders and medicines. If not for the Central government, the people in the city may have seen even worse situations.
The AAP government is also the culprit for creating panic among the people during the pandemic, as it encouraged the migrants to leave the city. The migrants had to leave the city because the AAP government blocked the availability of the foodgrains to them. If the city government had been empathetic to the migrants, they would not have walked barefoot several miles to escape the miseries in the national capital. That was despite the fact that the Central government was providing free ration to the people during the pandemic.
People voting in the MCD elections must recall the criminal negligence of the AAP government during the pandemic. The AAP must be held accountable for abandoning the responsibilities for which they had taken oath. Can such a party ever be given a chance to rule a city? The answer is a clear no. Anarchists deserve severe punishments. The people can punish only by rejecting such politicians, and teaching them a lesson which should serve as an example across the country.
(The author is Director, Public Policy Research Centre)