The Aam Aadmi Party came to power in Delhi on the promise of free power and water. In the afterglow of the Anna Hazare agitation, it won 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly. Now, another election is beginning to loom large before the AAP supremo Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Sensing trouble, after its candidates in the recent parliamentary poll, received a total rejection, Kejriwal has come up with another populist trick. With an eye on half of the capital’s population, he has promised free rides for women on the Delhi Metro and the State-run buses. Given that both are running at huge losses, Kejriwal’s vote-buying gimmick can only push them further into the red. In particular, the state of the Delhi Transport Corporation is woeful, with rickety buses, a recalcitrant staff and shortage of funds to buy new buses. Growth of ridership too has been falling on the DTC.
Remarkably, the headline-grabbing freebie was announced without undertaking any cost-analysis. Knowing full well that other parties will refrain from opposing the move for obvious reasons, he expects his proposal to go through. The fact that eventually the freebie will be paid for by the taxpayers alone seems to have escaped him. A better way would be to improve the performance of the transport system, improving and expanding the network of roads, upgrading water, health and educational services, etc. Maybe the higher courts will intervene to stop this reckless spending on a freebie which seeks to squander taxpayers’ funds on vote-buying by a rattled AAP government.
