AAP political party: Fake or real

Mita Nath Bora

(The statements made are of the writer. Reference Source: CAG report, RTI replies and News Media Report)

M is-governance, fake promises and a host of lies have been the model of AAP. Its record exposes poor performance on almost all fronts. For example, on an analysis of its poll manifesto promises, the AAP has been found to have a failure of 75%. From promised 2 lakh toilets, it had not built a single toilet; on promised 500 new government schools, there are only 25 schools in the record; on 1600 Mohalla Clinics promised, it had delivered 189 only; on the promise of 23 flyovers, not a single one has been started till date. Considering the huge requirement for medical facilities and the promise of 3,000 new hospital beds, only 394 have been found during the on-ground investigation. There are 6,004 fewer teachers in Delhi government schools and 15,702 vacant teachers' posts.

Kejriwal had promised to 'Build 2,00,000 Toilets' in its manifesto promise #17. A Business Today article highlights the abysmal situation wherein a CAG report has slammed the Delhi AAP government for not constructing a single toilet. A similar trend is observed on promise #19 to build '500 new government schools', where it is widely acknowledged even by AAP's Education Minister Manish Sisodia himself that only 25 schools have come up. Let's take the example of AAP's Manifesto Promise #9, 'Water as a Right', which entailed piped water to 14 lakh households and access to clean drinking water. Both the measurable targets have not been met, as per a Reuters report from July 2019 which clearly outlines the disparity in water availability between the rich and the poor in Delhi, the wanton use of tankers to overcome water shortage, indicating a complete lack of piped water supply to all households and a woeful inadequacy in clean drinking water even for the rich. The report also effectively counters the AAP tracker portal's claim updated in January 2017, that all households including unauthorized colonies would get piped water connections by December 2017.

An RTI was filed by activist Tejpal Singh over the year 2019 that revealed multiple instances of mis-governance.

On Teacher Vacancies & School Construction, it was found that there are 6,004 teachers in Delhi's government schools as of 30th September 2019. Moreover, there were 15,702 vacant posts on September 30, 2019, whereas 9,598 teacher posts were lying vacant on February 1, 2015. AAP had promised to construct 500 new schools, whereas only one school had been approved for construction in the past four years. April 2022, NCPCR statement revealed that out of 1027 government schools in Delhi, only 203 have a Headmaster or a Principal and has asked for an explanation from the AAP Delhi government.

On DTDC Buses' promise to buy 5,000 new buses, it was found through an RTI reply that the number of DTDC buses that plied on the Delhi roads fell from 4,705 buses to 3,796 buses between 2015 and 2019. The RTI reply was signed by a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) official.

On Hospitals & Healthcare, another RTI reply by the Directorate of Health Services, Government of Delhi, revealed that no new hospital was built between April 1, 2015, and March 31, 2019. The AAP government is also far from achieving 30,000 new beds in Delhi hospitals.

On Corruption that has been the biggest lie, Arvind Kejriwal says that his government has eradicated corruption in the national capital – "Next time if someone asks you for a bribe. Don't refuse. Just take out your phone and record the incident and share it on the number given." However, AAP politicians themselves were found to adopt unfair practices and with charges of corruption. An AAP councillor from East Delhi Municipal Corporation, Geeta Rawat, and her alleged associate, Bilal, have been arrested by CBI on charges of bribery and corruption. In 2016, out of 67 AAP MLAs, most of them are uneducated and had a case registered against themselves. Recently Transport Minister was accused of Corruption and scams, he was dropped from ministry by saying he is ill and can't handle two ministries. Water Scam and CNG Scam are some of the recent scams found in the AAP Government. Recently Chief Secretary Arvind Kejriwal with 6 more members was accused of a Rs 50-crore scam and is under police custody.

Mis-governance causing deaths –COVID19 (1st& 2nd waves)

AAP chief and CM, Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal openly boasted about, where his government promised 1,600 'Mohalla Clinics', while in reality, only 189 were in operation according to a report published in 2019. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had inaugurated the first-ever such clinic at Peeragarhi for Rs 20 lakh. He had announced that Delhi would soon have 1,000 such clinics.

Besides, amid a raging wave of the Covid-19 cases, Delhi, has been hit by an unprecedented medical oxygen crisis. While several Covid-19 patients have died waiting for beds with oxygen support, the family members of at least 32 say they died inside hospitals due to oxygen shortage. The Delhi government says it continues to face an oxygen shortage because of inadequate allocation and supply by the Central government, but the crisis also seems to have been caused by its failings, such as the inability to manage logistics or the absence of an allocation plan to hospitals.

An objective analysis of AAP's manifesto of 2015 reveals that Kejriwal's government has not been able to implement 75% of its manifesto promises (based on the average implementation % in the analysis of raw data).

Kejriwal was found to be a historical liar. In 2016 there was an SM twitter news exposing Kejriwal's faked followers. Twitter showed Arvind Kejriwal as having 11.5 million followers and later the same was changed to 8.7 million followers. Times of India said Twitter suspended 2.4L accounts of Kejriwal for promoting terror. This news was exposed by a citizen and the tweet got shared multiple times, creating a loss of face for Kejriwal.AAP immediately sent a legal notice to this person exposing Kejriwal. However, they finally failed in their attempt to suppress the truth.

AAP is a hotbed of Naxal and Maoist sympathisers. For example, Prashant Bhushan - founder of AAP is a Kashmir separatist supporter. Kamal Mitra Chenoy is a sympathiser of Osama Bin Laden, Afzal Guru, and Naxal. He was also fighting against the Indian state and supporting Hafeez Syed. Soni Sori is a Maoist sympathizer. Medha Patkar has been an Afzal Guru and Ajmal Amer Kasab sympathizer. Dr Binayak Sen is a Naxal Terrorist who is an AAP member. Raza Mujaffar Bhatt is an antinational Kashmir separatist who is an AAP member. Mary Roy, mother of Arundhati Roy is an AAP member and a hardcore Kashmiri separatist sympathizer. Allowing AAP entry into our society is allowing Maoist and Naxals into our State due to AAP's malpractices, lies and mis-governance many of its former leaders have deserted AAP. Ashutosh is a member of the party's highest decision-making body, the political affairs committee. Journalist-turned-politician has resigned from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Yogendra Yadav was expelled from the AAP as he had accused the party's leadership of autocratic behaviour during the distribution of tickets for the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections. Yadav was a founding member of the AAP and was also a member of its Political Affairs Committee (PAC). Mayank Gandhi: A founding member, Gandhi was also a member of the National Executive of the AAP. He was heading the Maharashtra unit of the party, which was arbitrarily disbanded in 2015 over differences with Kejriwal. Eventually, he quit the party.

Anjali Damania, the anti-corruption activist was the face of the party in Maharashtra. She contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election against BJP's Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur. In March 2015, she resigned from the party allegedly over differences with Kejriwal. Subhash Ware, leader of the Maharashtra unit resigned from the National Executive and membership of the AAP in October 2015. Anand Kumar, a former JNU professor has accused the party's leadership of indulging in corrupt practices. He was expelled. Kumar Vishwas, the founding member of the AAP, developed differences with Kejriwal sometime back. He also left AAP. Sukhpal Singh Khaira, AAP's Punjab unit leader was removed as the leader of the opposition in Punjab allegedly because he didn't listen to the diktat of the central leadership of the party. The AAP leadership is still trying to pacify him. Recently, nine 'rebel' MLAs led by Khaira openly defied the high command to go ahead with a volunteers' convention in Bathinda. Over 150 AAP leaders and workers join BJP a day after Arvind Kejriwal, and Bhagwant Mann's visit to Gujarat recently.

In the recent Punjab Assembly Election, Kejriwal announced a host of guarantees such as Rs 1,000 per month to women, free power and several others. When questioned on how they will manage finances, he replied that they will save money from sand mining, excise policy and by stopping corruption. However, after winning the election based on freebies the same AAP leader demanded from the Central government, a special package of Rs 50,000 crore each for two years so that Punjab can be self-reliant after two years. It demanded Rs 28,151 crore from the Centre for CCL.

Kejriwal's model of governance entails high-performance issuance of doles and subsidies which merely need paperwork to be signed in the comfort of the home office possibly, but wherever matters entail administrative implementation or coordination with other entities, the failure rate is alarming. The RTI replies, CAG reports and several findings expose inconvenient facts about the Arvind Kejriwal-led government in Delhi. These show that not only the AAP government has done nothing on many of their poll promises, they even lied to citizens.