Delhi govt led by Arvind Kejriwal failed to deliver on 75% promises made: Detailed analysis of all 70 promises made in 2015

Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal has claimed that he will seek votes on the track record of his government’s performance in Delhi since 2015. He has also claimed that apart from Full Statehood, his government has delivered on all 70 promises made to the people.

Let’s take an objective look at AAP’s declared manifesto promises of 2015 and how the Kejriwal government has fared in fulfilling each of the promises. In this analysis, every Manifesto promise has been first broken down into tangible measurable targets that the manifesto mentioned, and open-source data was gleaned to determine the fulfilment of the target as also % implementation where ratios were available. 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 this Reuters report from July 2019 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. This Reuters report also effectively counters AAP tracker portal’s claim updated in January 2017, that all households including unauthorized colonies would get piped water connections by December 2017.

Read: 1 school approved vs 500 promised, fall in DTC buses, 0 new hospitals, fake surveys: RTI replies reveal Kejriwal hasn’t fulfilled major election promises

The entire analysis is based on open source reports spanning across 80+ news articles reflecting the latest availability status of each promise. The study also analyzed AAP’s own tracker portal of its promises, which unsurprisingly stopped posting updates since February 2017, possibly because the lack of real measurable progress was glaring on most of the promises made. In the case of most promises, the AAP Tracker seems to post either no updates or irrelevant updates to the promises made. Where the portal information was deemed accurate, it has been factored into the analysis.

Of the 70 promises made, the analysis could capture relevant source-based data to assess a fulfilment % for all but two of the promises, where no data was available. The promises have been classified accordingly to not skew the analysis.

The raw data for the analysis is available at the end of this article in a tabular format. Every manifesto promise has been studied to assign a fulfilment status of either – Fulfilled, Not fulfilled or Partially Fulfilled, after referring meticulously to open source data available on the reported achievements against the promises, and the source of the data considered is also attributed.

Results of the Analysis

Of the 70 promises made, Kejriwal has delivered fully only on 11 promises, while the bulk, 57, are either not fulfilled or at best only partially fulfilled at the end of the 5-year term.

Analyzing what Kejriwal could deliver, we see that promises that predominantly involved a Subsidy or a Budgetary Spend allocation were the ones Kejriwal was most adept at handling. For e.g., promises that encompassed Free Lifeline Water, Electricity bills to be reduced by half, Regulating Private School Fees etc. are the ones which involved a quick policy or subsidy announcement.

On these, Kejriwal indeed has delivered on his promise. It’s another matter that the cost of such subsidies, as highlighted in a Hindu Business Line study, in the case of the electricity subsidy is 1759 crores for 2018-19, and is potentially being recovered by effectively hiking tariffs for non-individual connections. The long term effects of such subsidies are yet to play out and the verdict is out on what such effects could entail.

On the flip side, analyzing what Kejriwal couldn’t deliver, we come to the heart of the governance challenges that plague Kejriwal – 80% of the promises that went unfulfilled, involved some administrative implementation components, i.e. promises that involved some element of services delivery beyond just passing of a legislation or declaring a subsidy or budgetary allocation, Kejriwal couldn’t deliver. Administrative implementation is Kejriwal’s ‘Achilles Heel’ so to say. E.g. Kejriwal had promised to ‘Build 200000 Toilets’ in its Manifesto promise #17.

The business today article highlights the abysmal situation wherein a CAG report has slammed the state 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. AAP’s counter-position is to claim that over 1000 classrooms have been added, but the facts on promise #24 to ‘Ramp up govt schools’ show a woeful inadequacy of teachers as well, a problem that Kejriwal hasn’t been able to resolve. How the claim of the addition of classrooms ties up with a lack of teachers is anyone’s guess.

In 2015, Kejriwal committed to delivering on 10 promises, that involved a definite degree of coordination with either the Central Govt or neighbouring states. It is here that Kejriwal seems to have paid the price of his repeated run-ins with the LG office and the Central government, leading to a failure rate of 80% on delivering promises that needed some coordination with non-AAP entities.

Flagship schemes such as Jan Lokpal Bill, Swaraj Bill, Full Statehood for Delhi etc. are stuck in the tussle between Kejriwal and the LG. A fundamental leadership question arises – Why make promises that are not fully in your control in the first place. And if promises have been made where coordination is an absolute must deliver, why take an antagonistic stand towards the central government eliminating any chance of coordination?

In summary, 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.

In such a context, a flurry of new promises made in the hue of ‘Kejriwal ka Guarantee Card‘, must be assumed to come with a guarantee of at least 75% failure.

Following are the tables of promises fulfilled, not fulfilled, partially fulfilled or fully fulfilled.

The list of 48 promises that remain unfulfilled out of 70 promises.

The list of 9 promises that remain partially fulfilled out of 70 promises.

The list of 11 promises out of 70 promises fulfilled by the AAP government.