The arrest of the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, in an alleged liquor scam continues the unravelling of the carefully crafted image of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as an anti-corruption party. AAP came into existence by free-riding on the anti-corruption movement of civil society during the UPA days. The massive corruption, inflation and policy paralysis under the UPA regime created general revulsion against the political class and allowed anarchist forces to find traction in the public imagination.
Several activists and NGOs with opaque backgrounds and sources of funding started sprouting up, claiming to have found miraculous solutions to the challenges facing the country. Often fixated on a single issue and single-point simplistic solution but with a fanatical zeal, they were amply aided by the TRP-hungry media channels. Arvind Kejriwal and others like him hijacked the public sentiment to create the Aam Aadmi Party, promising to end corruption by passing the Jan Lokpal Bill, an ambiguous extra-constitutional body with sweeping powers far superseding those enjoyed by any constitutional post so far.
In the 10 years, AAP has grown by preying upon a public reeling under the corrupt rule of the Congress party. AAP came to power in 2015 with much fanfare around its utopian promises and policies. Mohalla clinics, free medicines and consultations; pollution control; traffic and transport management; reforms in education, power, Jal Board, and urban planning and development were some of the promises made to the citizens of Delhi. Despite a second full majority mandate, all these promises still need to be fulfilled.
The entire strategy of AAP has been to run an advertisement blitzkrieg instead of doing any real work on the ground. Delhi’s much-touted health and education model is only found in the extensive advertisements in newspapers across the country. Mohalla clinics are an abject failure. An RTI query revealed that no new hospitals had been built under the AAP regime since 2015. It led to a massive bed crunch during the pandemic, resulting in a higher death rate than in other states.
Public transport in Delhi is also collapsing. Fewer buses are seen on the roads as there have been no new acquisitions except centre-funded electric buses under the FAME-II programme. No new flyovers/roads were built in Delhi in the same period. There were zero colleges or higher education institutions built by the Kejriwal regime and only one school. At the same time, thousands of teaching posts are vacant in Delhi schools, and hundreds of schools are without principals.
State government-funded colleges of Delhi University are facing an acute crunch of funding, with salaries of pensioners, teaching and non-teaching staff often pending for months, with Manish Sisodia allegedly trying to force the appointment of his cronies in the governing bodies as the pre-condition for the timely release of funds. The politics of freebies has resulted in a rapid increase in the Delhi public debt. The state is running a fiscal deficit of more than Rs 9,000 crore. Even its much-advertised revenue surplus is because the Centre pays pension liabilities of its employees, expenditure on police, etc.
The corruption in Delhi has become more institutionalised under AAP. Allegations, like the renting of a party worker’s property for a Mohalla clinic way above the market rate, are commonplace. And now the massive liquor scam has exposed AAP for what it is: A syndicate of opportunistic careerists who crave power and wealth at all costs, unrestrained by ethics or morals. AAP has no interest in governing but only seeks to grab more and more power for its dictatorial, visionless leadership. Its victory in Delhi was not used to work for the betterment of the city, but to leverage it for expansion into Punjab and other states. Just a few months of AAP rule have seen a total collapse of law and order in Punjab, which is being remote-controlled by Kejriwal. Now anarchists have overrun police stations, and the Punjab CM is meeting with Kejriwal and Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai to plan new electoral alliances.
When faced with a crisis, AAP has abdicated all responsibilities in Punjab just like it left Delhi to its fate during the first and second waves of the pandemic. It has been following a clever policy of intense paid propaganda to construct a false picture of pro-people work in departments like health and education while its ministers indulge in such shenanigans. Delhi is the only state whose health and education ministers are in jail on serious charges of corruption. The same is the story in Punjab where the health minister and MLAs have been found indulging in corruption.
The spell cast by freebie politics and paid propaganda of the AAP is nearing its end. People are realising that AAP is simply Congress 2.0 minus the dynasty.
The writer is National Vice-President, BJP youth wing
