New Delhi: On 4 February, addressing an election rally in Dwarka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had been depriving the people of Delhi, the benefits of central government schemes for the poor.
“The government in Delhi does not care about the lives of the people living here. What is the fault of the homeless who are not allowed to get homes under the PM Awas Yojana? What is the fault of farmers that they do not get the benefits under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi? Why did daily commuters have to suffer because the fourth stage of Delhi Metro expansion was not given clearance (by city government) for two years?” Modi asked.
The PM was not off the mark.
In the last five years, the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government has refused to implement the Ayushman Bharat, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the Ujjwala and the PM-Kisan among other key central schemes designed for the poor.
While the poor can get treated in private hospitals under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) quota in Delhi, they don’t have insurance cover that Ayushman Bharat, a central government scheme, provides.
The health insurance scheme provides a coverage of Rs 1.5 lakh per family per year.
Similarly, Delhi’s homeless can’t benefit from PMAY or the Ujjwala scheme, which provide LPG connections to women from Below Poverty Line (BPL) households.
Farmers in Delhi’s rural outskirts have been left out of PM-Kisan, the central scheme that provides minimum income support of Rs 6,000 every year to farmer families.
The residents of Delhi, however, have mixed feelings about the situation that is a result of the BJP-AAP one-upmanship in the national capital.
There are many like Lal Bahadur, 51, an electrician working in New Friends Colony’s Bharat Nagar locality, who are not bothered by AAP not implementing central schemes.
“Even if Ayushman Bharat has not been implemented in Delhi, today the poor can go to mohalla clinics and if required big hospitals for treatment under the EWS quota. No hospital can refuse,” Bahadur said, speaking to ThePrint. “This has happened because of Kejriwal. The quota was there earlier also but hospitals did not enforce it. Kejriwal has ensured that they implement it.”
Brij Mohan, who has a tea stall in Kalkaji, said he supported BJP earlier but the party “hardly did anything” to improve his living standard. “My children are going to a government school and getting decent education. I can afford to take them out once in a while because I am now able to save. I don’t have to shell out anything for using electricity and water.”
He added, “There is a pucca road in my locality. After all this, I am okay if I don’t get the benefit of PMAY or Ayushman Bharat. I can still go to mohalla clinic or get treated in a private hospital.”
Mohan’s neighbour Surya Das agreed: “The BJP keeps talking about how Ayushman Bharat has revolutionised health services across India. But if hospital services were so good in UP and Bihar, why do so many people from these states keep coming to Delhi for treatment all the time.”
Surya Kumar, a resident of Delhi’s Badarpur, however, is peeved at the fact that residents are deprived of the central government benefits.
“Tell us, are we different from others in the rest of India?” Kumar asked. “Why should we be denied the benefits of schemes such as Ujjwala or PM-Kisan? It’s meant for people like us only.”
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‘Kejriwal doesn’t want to deflect from his own governance model’
According to political analysts, more than a clash of egos, AAP’s refusal to implement Modi government’s schemes could stem from the fact that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal does not want to deflect the narrative from his own governance and development model.
For close to two decades before the AAP government was voted to power in 2015, Delhi was known for the development model initiated by the then chief minister Sheila Dikshit. During her tenure, the city got CNG buses and auto-rickshaws, low-floor buses and a network of metro and flyovers among others.
But Kejriwal has successfully managed to turn the focus on the schemes that his government has launched, be it school reforms or mohalla clinics.
“Kejriwal is no different from others. He has mobilised the campaign focussed on what he did for five years at a time the BJP is trying to pitch its campaign around its ideology of Hindutva, implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act, scrapping Article 370 from Kashmir, etc,” said Rahul Verma, fellow at the Centre for Policy Research.
Political analysts say Kejriwal is well aware of the fact that if his government is not implementing central schemes, it will have to bring its own version of welfare schemes like providing improved school services or mohalla clinics.
In doing this, Kejriwal has followed CMs of non-BJP states like West Bengal and Odisha, where the state governments have launched their own version of welfare schemes.
For instance, in West Bengal, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government has the Nirmal Bangla scheme in place of the Swachh Bharat Mission, a key flagship programme of the Modi government to make India open-defecation free. The Trinamool government has also refused to be a part of the central government’s smart cities project.
Another central government flagship scheme that Bengal has not implemented is Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, which aims to uplift the condition of the girl child. It already has the Kanyashree scheme that gives Rs 1,000 to girls in the 13-18 age group every year so they continue studying and remain unmarried till 18.
Other states like Odisha have also emulated a similar model of pursuing state-specific schemes instead of implementing central ones. The Odisha government has the Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) in place of PM-Kisan.
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AAP leaders call BJP’s charges a ‘total fallacy’
The BJP may have made non-implementation of central schemes as one of its poll issues but AAP leaders call the charges a “total fallacy”.
“If we are not implementing a central scheme, it is because we can better it to suit the people. Ayushman Bharat is an inferior scheme, which impacts only a small section of the population,” said a senior AAP leader, not wishing to be named. “Our mohalla clinics impact each and every individual living in the city.”
The AAP leader blamed the BJP for playing “low-level politics”. “The BJP including the Prime Minister keeps saying that Delhi has not implemented PMAY. But tell me where is the land available in the Capital to build houses? If the Centre gives us land, we will be more than happy to construct houses under PMAY.”
Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister and BJP MP from Delhi, however, is convinced that people would vote out AAP for its “double-speak and failure to allow Delhi residents avail central schemes”.
“As on date, 75 per cent people in the rest of the country have benefited from Ayushman Bharat. But Delhi’s poor have been deprived of the benefit because of the AAP government’s refusal to implement the scheme,” Harsh Vardhan said.
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