Delhi Assembly elections | In Kejriwal citadel, buzz of unease: ‘Not all promises fulfilled’

Sushil Arora (42), a tour operator, says AAP’s offers are “very tempting” but “Delhi’s financial situation is worsening so how can we be sure they will fulfill their promises”.

In the last three Assembly elections spanning nearly 12 years, the majority of voters in the New Delhi constituency spoke in one voice, echoing the name of Arvind Kejriwal — and that showed in the results: 53.46% in 2013, 64.14% in 2015 and 61.1% in 2020. This time, as voting looms on February 5, those voices don’t have the same echo.

Over the past week, The Indian Express crisscrossed this high-profile block of 1.09 lakh voters in the heart of Delhi, where slum clusters jostle with upscale hotspots, and found that while many are willing to give the AAP founder another chance, there is also a sense of disillusionment.

“He is giving us the same old promises. He is himself living in a villa, and only visits us from election to election. When it rains here, the roads become waterlogged,” says Pushpa Verma, who stays in the Sangam Mess JJ cluster near Mandi House.

“We were all staunch supporters of Kejriwal ji,” says Jaikesh Mishra, the auto driver. But today, most of the WhatsApp groups on his phone have a BJP tilt. “There are no parking spaces for us… the middle man asks us Rs 1,000 for a permit sometimes,” Mishra adds while listing his grievances.

“Kejriwal has helped poor people a lot, but now every other party is following his policy. They are all promising the same freebies,” says Chattar Singh (50), who clicks photos for a living at India Gate, amid a busy afternoon. “The BJP has also promised free electricity and water this time, and they improve the infrastructure too. People want change sometimes,” he says.

Pointing to arrangements made at Kartavya Path for Republic Day, Singh, who lives in a JJ cluster nearby, adds, “The BJP has done all this. They can change the state of Delhi’s roads as well.”

In 2015 and 2020, Kejriwal pushed the BJP to a distant second, with Nupur Sharma managing just 28.73% of votes and Sunil Kumar Yadav 32.75% five years later. Meanwhile, the AAP consolidated its hold across the National Capital with close to 15% of Delhi’s total budget dedicated to subsidies, including free bus rides, free electricity and water. The AAP government also spent close to 40% of its budget on health and education, among  the highest for any state.

And yet, it’s not an open and shut case this time in Kejriwal’s fort.

One reason, of course, is that among the 22 other candidates in the fray here are the sons of two former Delhi CMs: BJP’s Parvesh Verma, son of Sahib Singh Verma, and Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit, son of Sheila Dikshit. In fact, it was here in 2013 that Kejriwal himself dethroned Sheila Dikshit, ending her 15-year rule.

“All the parties are offering the same things… Even if 15% vote for the Congress in New Delhi, BJP could win,” says Mishra, the auto driver, adding that “if Congress was not there, Kejriwal would have won easily”.

“I still think AAP is reliable but our cluster is very divided this time,” says a resident of Sangli Mess, where voters are split between AAP and BJP. For Darshana (65), another resident, health is a major issue. “I am a sugar patient and have to travel all the way to Vinod Nagar in East Delhi to get medicines… sometimes, there are no medicines available there either. We need more Mohalla clinics throughout Delhi,” she says.

The nearly 3 lakh households in Delhi’s 675 slums and 1,700 JJ clusters make up almost 10% of the electorate and form one of the most crucial vote banks in the National Capital. Of these households, close to a fifth are situated in the New Delhi Parliamentary constituency, which includes the New Delhi Assembly seat along with nine others.

Even in Connaught Place, nearly 2 km from Sangli Mess, voters seem divided. “I think cleanliness and pollution should be an issue this time…for how long can we rely on freebies?” says Sushil Arora, the tour operator.

This time around, with New Delhi seeing a drop of 25.3% (36,800) in its percent of voters from 2020 to 2025, partly owing to migrating government employees, AAP is also trying to reach out to middle class voters. Last Wednesday, the party came out with a “budget for the middle class” in an attempt to regain the voter base which rallied behind it during the India Against Corruption movement that led to its formation.

The 2022 People Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE) survey pegs Delhi’s middle-class households — defined as those that earn between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 30 lakh per year — at 67.17%, among the highest in the country.

And in 2020, according to a post poll survey conducted by Lokniti-CSDS, an independent research institute, the AAP registered a 2-percentage point gain among middle-class voters, securing 53% of the votes.

The Lokniti survey also showed, however, that the BJP had narrowed sizable gaps with AAP among the poor, lower-income and middle-income voters between the 2015 and 2020 polls.

But then, there are still strong echoes from the last three elections, from those who continue to stand behind their “favourite” leader.

“Health, education, electricity and water… earlier governments didn’t pay attention to this. Only AAP has worked to improve the state of Delhi on the following parameters,” says Rakesh Singh (44), who resides near Gole Market. “What will happen to healthcare and education when the BJP is voted in? I don’t think I can trust them… AAP is more reliable to me,” he says.