As Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal beams on television ad announcing the return of the fortnight-long odd-even car rationing scheme from April 15, his party colleagues feel more at ease this time around. When the scheme was first discussed last December and thereafter implemented for 15 days from January 1, opinion was sharply divided over the political implications of a scheme that was most likely to inconvenience the car-owing section of the city. Several members in the political secretariat of the Aam Aadmi Party government claim to have flagged the issue and pointed out that the disgruntled car-owner could drift away from the party. What that meant in terms of real figures, there was no way to know then. The ‘success’ of the scheme in January came as a surprise not only to the AAP government but several car-owners who have still not reconciled to the whopping taxi bills, fleecing auto drivers and jam-packed metro trains during that period. Odd/Even 1: Debating the success of Kejriwal's Odd-Even formula The arguably low figures of daily challans on offenders (a total of over 10,000 challans in 15 days) pointed to two possibilities: either the enforcement by Delhi Traffic Police was inadequate or commuters followed the rule as conscientious citizens. One thing stood out: the decongested roads and a general sense of order with very few offenders on the road brought about a consensus on the ‘success’ of the scheme. As the Kejriwal government started mulling an encore, it went out to gather exhaustive feedback online and through public meetings with party MLAs in every constituency. The opinion poll was heavily in favour of the scheme with 84 per cent of the respondents calling for another round ‘as soon as possible.’ The respondents cited decongested roads and improving air quality as their top reasons for backing the scheme. However who these respondents were, their profile and background is yet to be analysed. Were they the same car-owning section that had initially frowned upon the idea or were they the non-car-owning section that is anyway dependent on public transport who had a smoother ride with clearer roads and a greater number of buses? Those 15-days of the odd-even car rationing scheme gave brisk business to auto drivers and taxi owners, a section that has rallied behind the AAP since its early days in politics. The exemptions were crucial – women, who were portrayed in AAP advertisements as impressed with Kejriwal for bringing down water and power tariff, were yet again unaffected by the scheme. Also a large number of families that owned two cars and luckily had cars with odd and even numbers also remained unaffected. So the party is banking on the conscientious commuter, driving home the point that a severe air pollution problem stares the city’s next generation. All in all, Kejriwal has his move well-calculated.
