The Aam Aadmi Party, or AAP, is a political party founded by Arvind Kejriwal in 2012. It was born out of a civil society movement — Indian Against Corruption — that received massive popular support in 2011-12 after public anger over corruption charges on the then Congress-led UPA government.
It won its first elections in Delhi in 2013, and came to power with outside support from the Congress. But the government lasted only 49 days as Kejriwal resigned since he was unable to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly. The AAP returned to power in 2015, when fresh elections were held, and swept the Delhi elections winning 67 of 70 seats. The first few issues tackled by AAP were the fraudulent inflation of water and electricity bills, promising the people of Delhi certain free units of electricity.
The AAP government in Delhi has been in a tussle with the BJP-ruled central government and the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) over the division of powers. Kejriwal and several AAP leaders and ministers face corruption charges related to alleged irregularities in the 2021-22 Delhi excise policy case. The case has already landed former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, and AAP campaign manager Vijay Nair in jail.
“you can fool some people all the time, and all the people some time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time” ??? An idiotic response, indeed.
What about transgenders? No Free rides for them? Sexist Kejriwal murdabad.
The objective of making women’s rides free is to encourage them to take up more public space; more women means they’ll feel more secure. So it’s a good move. But each service has a cost and who’ll bear the cost in this case. The taxpayers! Why? Almost all the rides of the babies and kids are free today, that of the children and senior citizens are subsidized. So why can’t the women’s rides be subsidized? There is another argument against making it a freebie; anything available for free tend to be misutilized. What if a woman simply travels to spend time? If a woman’s travels are free and that of children are not free, should the woman stand in queue to buy ticket for the children? Doesn’t it look odd? It’s like, helmets are not made mandatory for SARDARs, so it looks odd to make helmet mandatory for their women who are pillion riders. In fact the mandatory rule for wearing of helmets for pillion riders was revoked in Delhi at least once only for this reason.
Anything that empowers women gets my vote. However, with the caveat that it should be fiscally sustainable. Delhi Metro is not financially profitable, despite so much support, starting with low cost funding from Japan. In Bombay, the BEST’s bus service loses money, subsidised by the supply of power. It will be difficult to extend public transport – environmentally an imperative – if its viability is further eroded by such clearly We have to win the next election at all costs populism. Even AAP’s decision to supply free water to households is not prudent. AK will have to learn from LKY if Delhi is to become Singapore.