Reinstating bus marshals: Contentious issue that has spilled into AAP’s 2025 Delhi poll campaign

After inviting him to the stage, Kejriwal said, “This brother is a bus marshal. I and my party are the ones fighting for you; no one else will. In Gujarat, even police officers are on temporary contracts. The BJP never makes anything permanent.”

On Saturday, a man named Ashok Jha, who police said was a bus marshal from Khanpur depot, attempted to “attack” Kejriwal while he was greeting the crowd during a padyatra at Malviya Nagar in Greater Kailash.

Sachin Bharwal, a representative from the Bus Marshal Pratinidhi Mandal, said: “In the fight to take credit for the redeployment of bus marshals, our futures are at stake. Both parties are deliberately creating hurdles for each other, and an issue that could have been easily solved is being delayed. Even among bus marshals, many people have started taking sides of parties, which will only weaken our movement.”

To prevent incidents of misbehaviour towards women in DTC buses, the bus marshal scheme was introduced in 2015. Initially, 3,356 civil defence volunteers (CDVs) were deployed as marshals, and following a 2019 recommendation by a task force on women’s safety, the vacancies were increased to over 13,000, with over 10,000 appointed in subsequent years.

However, in November 2023, the services of these 10,000 bus marshals were abruptly terminated after the Revenue and Finance departments said that their deployment as bus marshals did not align with the Civil Defence Act, 1968. Since then, the dismissals have fueled a blame game between the AAP-led Delhi government and the Centre-appointed L-G V K Saxena.