Arvind Kejriwal’s repeated attempts of misusing Delhi taxpayers’ funds for self-promotion in contravention of the Supreme Court’s guidelines displays their trickery and hypocrisy and further reduces Arvind Kejriwal's standing in public life.
AAP: False Promises
Kejriwal makes tall hefty promises to get votes, but does little to fulfill these promises. He pushes advertisements claiming success in fulfilling his promises but the ground reality is quite the opposite. Many states have already rejected AAP, they must continue to reject the Kejriwal brand of politics which relies on hollow promises.
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गुणैरुत्तमतां याति नोच्चैरासनसंस्थितः।
प्रासादशिखरस्थोऽपि काकः किं गरुडायते॥
Greatness comes from good qualities and not from a high position. A crow doesn’t become a Garuda just by sitting on the top of a palace.
Arvind Kejriwal and AAP have been sitting on the top of a palace, Delhi, since its foundation in 2012. Kejriwal’s intoxication to power started with the betrayal of his own proclamation, “I will never join politics”, made during the India Against Corruption movement. Since then, Kejriwal, like many other politicians has abandoned his ideals. He has forfeited all the principles he spoke about at that time and made winning elections his only goal. Kejriwal makes tall hefty promises to get votes, but does little to fulfill these promises. When questions are raised, he pushes advertisements claiming success in fulfilling his promises. The reality on ground however remains quite different. Interestingly, AAP’s own tracker portal of its promises stopped posting updates since February 2017.
Education Model:
The AAP government has made many claims and run many ads about the “world-class education model” in Delhi. Reality is that their government has presided over the systematic decline of public education system even as it claims it to be a success.
AAP promised to open 20 new government colleges and 500 new schools but an RTI revealed that AAP did not start a single college and has managed to open only 25 schools. As per the Performance Grading Index of 2019-2020 (UDISE), Delhi does not even stand in the top-5-list which includes all the states and the Union Territories.
Performance in AAP government schools presents a gloomy picture as well. In 2014, 98.8% of students passed the secondary level, however, this reduced to a low of 68.9% in 2018. A report stated that a mammoth 55% of students did not go to the Class X from Class IX. It was also found that 42% of those not passing the exam, ultimately dropped off from the school system entirely.
Out of a total of 1,027 schools run by the AAP government, only 203 schools had a principal. An RTI revealed, at least 45,503 posts of teachers were lying vacant in Delhi government-run schools, which amounted to a shortfall of almost 52%.
If this wasn’t bad, a Central Vigilance Commission report, submitted to the Delhi government in 2020, revealed shocking details of financial misconduct and procedural lapses in the construction of new classrooms. The report points to cost escalation of Rs 326.25 crores over the tender amount issued. It also highlights the sub-standard quality of work and incomplete status of the project in many schools. It reveals that toilets, special rooms etc. were considered as classrooms. The government hid the report for 2.5 years.
Healthcare:
We should not forget that campaign rhetoric in any country is soon forgotten after the polls. Arvind Kejriwal uses precisely this public trait to hide his failures.
The AAP makes tall claims about its healthcare system but of 1600 promised healthcare clinics, only 189 have been completed so far. Only 394 additional hospital beds have been discovered despite the enormous need for medical facilities and the promise of 3,000 new beds. Regarding hospitals and healthcare, an RTI response from the Delhi government’s Directorate of Health Services revealed that no new hospitals were constructed between April 2015, and March 2019. The AAP administration is also far from adding 30,000 new hospital beds it promised. In October 2021, Arvind Kejriwal announced he would be building 7 new hospitals with a combined capacity of 6800 beds in 6 months but not a single hospital has been completed so far. Promises, promises and more promises. Only promises without anything actually happening on the ground is the real model of the AAP.
In 2013-2014, Delhi had 267 maternity homes. The number fell to 138 in the years 2020-2021. 53 nursing homes were shut down between 2017 to 2021. There is less than one dispensary for 29,349 people in Delhi as against the mandated one dispensary per 15,000 people. Even the budgetary allocation for the much-publicized mohallah clinics was slashed by more than 50% between 2017-18 to 2021. There was a shortage of 21% of medical staff, and 50% of paramedical staff in hospitals under the Delhi government.
An RTI revealed that the Kejriwal administration had not bought a single “patient transport ambulance” capable of transporting patients to hospitals between April 2014 and April 2022. But during the same time period, they sold 9 of these for scrap at a cost of Rs 23,659 each. The Kejriwal administration purchased a total of 10 “Advanced Life Support Ambulances”. But during the same time period they sold 20 of these for scrap at a cost of Rs 75,246 each. The apathy towards healthcare despite of Delhites facing the brunt of Kejriwal’s inability to manage the Covid-19 pandemic is shocking.
Another promise was of providing access to clean drinking water and piping water to 14 lakh households. Several reports highlight disparity in water availability between the rich and the poor in Delhi, the malicious use of tankers to address water shortages, the absence of a piped water supply to every household, and the appalling inadequacy of clean drinking water even for the rich.
Reviving Yamuna and augmenting water resources were also promises that went unfulfilled.
False Promises:
Of the 2 lakh promised toilets, not a single one had been constructed in four years; of 11,000 promised free WiFi connections, only 100 had been installed in four years; of 3000 promised playgrounds, just 77 have only been announced; of 8 lakh promised jobs, only 214 had been provided in two years; and of the 23 flyovers promised, not a single one has been started as of yet.
In 2015, AAP promised to add 5000 buses to improve the public transport of Delhi. In reality the fleet was reduced by 700 buses instead. It promised 1000 electric buses but just 1 had been put in operation by 2019. Kejriwal promised 15 lakh CCTVs, Women security commandoes, but nothing has been materialized till now. AAP had promised to make Delhi a retail hub, but it slipped in ease of doing business rankings from 15 in 2015 to 23 in 2017. Even small promises like providing adequate street lighting remain unfulfilled.
Conclusion:
In 5 years, of the 70 promises made in 2015, work had been finished on just 31% and was pending on 60%, while 9% of the assurances hadn’t seen any update. Arvind Kejriwal has routinely broken promises he has ever made, but no one in the media ever calls attention to this as they benefit from AAP’s advertising on their channels.
The AAP has a history of mis-governance, making false promises, and telling many lies. Its track record reveals subpar performance on all fronts. Many of its own workers who once took pride in their leader now say they feel dejected. Many states have already rejected AAP, they must continue to reject the Kejriwal brand of politics which relies on hollow promises.
Tags: Aam Aadmi Party
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When parties promise freebies in their manifestos, they should mandatorily explain how they plan to finance them. The AAP has appropriated this business of offering freebies as a ‘patented’ solution to win elections.
Kejriwal’s addiction to drama and narcissism will empty the taxpayer pockets. For a leader who hyped austerity as an AAP commandment, Kejriwal is the master of spin, advertising himself to glory at taxpayers’ expense.
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AAP's shifting ideological positions display their indifference towards morality, values, ideologies and even basic ethics. For a party that was born of a movement against corruption, AAP is now embroiled in corruption scandals and has firmly sacrificed anti-corruption plank at the altar of cynical vote-bank politics.