Thursday, January 23, 2025
HomeNews ReportsAAP makes a joke of the middle class and election manifestos- promises nothing after...

AAP makes a joke of the middle class and election manifestos- promises nothing after winning, asks Modi govt to do everything

Far from offering anything tangible, Kejriwal passed the buck on the Centre, asking the Modi government to come good in the upcoming budget while projecting himself and his party as the messiah of the middle class.

On Wednesday, 22nd January, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal released a ‘middle-class manifesto’ ahead of the Delhi Assembly Elections and raised seven demands including education, health, tax rebate, and pension from the centre. The party also demanded that the Union Budget slated to be presented in February this year should completely be dedicated to middle-class men.

Addressing a press meeting, Kejriwal said that the party would become the voice of middle-class people and would ask the government to stop tax-terrorizing them. “Today, we appeal to the Central government to recognize India’s true superpower the middle class. I announce that AAP will be the voice of the middle class from the streets to the Parliament. We demand that the next national budget be dedicated to the middle class,” Kejriwal said.

Kejriwal made 7 demands to the Central government, which are as follows-

  1. The education budget should be increased to 10 per cent from 2 per cent, and the fee for private schools should be capped.
  2. Subsidies and scholarships be given for higher education. 
  3. The health budget should be increased to 10 per cent, and tax should be removed from health insurance.
  4. The income tax exemption limit should be increased to Rs 10 lakh from the present Rs 7 lakh.
  5. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) should be removed from essential commodities.
  6. A strong retirement plan and pension schemes for senior citizens should be announced, and there should be free medical services for senior citizens in all government and private hospitals across the country. 
  7. Senior citizens should get a 50 per cent concession in rail travel.

Kejriwal slammed the Centre for its financial policies and alleged that it was imposing ‘tax terrorism’ on the middle-class people. “People have to pay taxes while they are alive, but now the government has created a situation where they have to pay even after death. Amid this tax terrorism, how can someone even dare to chase their dreams?” Kejriwal said.

“For a married couple, family planning has become a financial decision. Due to such issues, many Indians are leaving the country. In 2020, around 85,000 people left India for foreign nations. This is a matter of great sorrow for our country,” he added further criticizing the political parties for reducing the middle class to what he described as a ‘slave mindset’.

Meanwhile, PM Modi took cognizance of the event and said that AAP was notorious for making false promises. It is important to note that the AAP has been making false promises to the citizens in the past few months in the wake of the Delhi Assembly elections and every time has been exposed rightly. In the given case, he claims to be standing behind the middle-class people saying that he will be the people’s voice but apparently fails to actually make any kind of promise to the middle-class. Instead, he is attempting to make a place in the minds of the voters by targeting the Centre as he asks them to ensure the fulfilment of 7 demands that he has made today.

AAP made fraudulent promises to women, and senior citizens last month

It is crucial to note that the AAP in December had made a promise to offer free medical and healthcare services to citizens aged above 60. Former AAP CM Arvind Kejriwal while announcing the scheme stated that the citizens would be able to avail the benefits of the scheme at private and government hospitals.

It also promised Rs 2100 per month to every woman under the Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana. For this, the party members had begun collecting data from the women claiming that they would get money based on the forms filled. On 25th December, the AAP revealed that around 1.15 million people had already signed up for the said schemes and that around 1,50,000 among them who are senior citizens had signed up for free health care.

However, later the fraud of the AAP leaders was exposed after the Health and Family Welfare Department of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Women and Child Development Department, of the Delhi Government said that no such schemes were announced by the state and that no persons were authorized to collect the data for the schemes.

Issuing an official notification the Women and Child Development Department of the Delhi Government said, “It is emphasized that since no such Scheme is in existence, the question of acceptance of the form/application for registration under this non-existent Scheme does not arise. Any private person/political party who is collecting forms/applications or collecting information from applicants in the name of this scheme is committing fraud and has no authority.”

It warned the women citizens of Delhi to stop sharing personal information through fraudulent forms. It added that the data could be leaked posing a threat to the identities of women applicants. “No official authority has been ordered to collect personal data of the citizens in the name of the fraudulent schemes,” it added.

Kejriwal has a huge history of making fake promises and telling lies to the citizens of Delhi for the political benefit of the party. Be it during the COVID spread or free ration scheme or regarding the cleanliness of the Yamuna River, AAP’s promises and boasts somehow almost always end up in hot air. OpIndia has time and again exposed Kejriwal for making fraudulent promises to the public. All such reports can be read here.

Notably, AAP during the Punjab elections had also promised to provide a monthly financial aid of Rs 1,000 to women in the state. This promise too remained unfulfilled forcing the Punjab women to protest against the government. “Why hasn’t Kejriwal kept the promises made to us three years ago? When will he fulfil them? We filled out a form for Rs 1,000 three years ago. It’s been more than three years, but we still haven’t received any money,” the women yelled as they protested outside the residence of AAP Convenor Arvind Kejriwal on January 4th.

The education model by AAP stood exposed in the past

The AAP supremo in the press meeting stated that the party raised its education budget from Rs 5000 crores to Rs 10000 crores and then to Rs 16000 crores aiming to provide better education to the Delhi students. He said that his party believed that education was the only mode through which a major push could be given to the civilians to make this country a better place.

However, it is interesting to note that the Delhi model of education was exposed several times amid which several Delhi municipal authorities and opposition leaders revealed how the party was practising corruption in the name of providing better facilities to the school-going children. In 2022, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, the leader of the opposition in the Delhi Legislative Assembly criticized the party for claiming to have the best education model in the state. He said that as per the Performance Grading Index of 2019-2020, Delhi did not even stand in the top 5 of the list which includes all the states and the Union Territories. 

“In the performance in the domain of learning outcome, Delhi stands in the 32nd position among all states and UTs. Delhi is in the 6th position from the bottom. This implies that even after hefty spending in the name of education, students of schools in Delhi are performing very poorly,” he said calling the AAP’s policy a sham.

Bidhuri stressed that the condition of Delhi University colleges funded by the Delhi Government was also very poor. The government was unable to pay salaries to the teaching and non-teaching staff in the colleges fully funded by the Delhi government. Bidhuri stressed that the condition of Delhi University colleges funded by the Delhi Government was also very poor. The government was unable to pay salaries to the teaching and non-teaching staff in the colleges fully funded by the Delhi government. According to a November 2021 news report, 12 Delhi University colleges financed by the Delhi government experienced a funding crisis since their assigned funds were reduced.

In 2019, several Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools had posts for teachers, and principals vacant and the student enrolment had also drastically reduced. More than 5,000 students in 14 schools were forced to sit on floors, as there were no desks and benches, and 44 schools did not have Jal Board water connections. The same was the plight of 40,000 students in 100 schools of North MCDA. There were 14 schools without a campus of their own.

Kejriwal claimed that students from private schools began joining government schools. However, data by 2018 showed that the number of enrolments in private schools had been on the rise and that in the government schools were reducing.

Recently, in 2022, the vigilance directorate recommended a detailed investigation by a specialized agency into the alleged irregularities and corruption by the Kejriwal government in the construction of 2,405 classrooms in 194 government schools in Delhi. The Central Vigilance Commission had outlined “grave irregularities” in the Public Works Department’s (PWD) construction of over 2,400 classrooms in Delhi government schools in a report dated February 17, 2020. The report was not taken seriously by the AAP until the then-governor, ordered an investigation into the matter.

Health scheme saw cut in Delhi budget last year

Notably, Kejriwal asked the Center to increase the health budget by 10% and also said that senior citizens deserved free medical aid. However, in the last Delhi Budget, the AAP government reduced the budget allotted to the health sector by around Rs 1000 crores. The budget was reduced from Rs 9742 crores in 2023 to Rs 8685 crores in 2024. For schemes and projects also, the allocation was reduced from Rs 4830 crores to Rs 3423 crores.

In her Budget speech, then-Finance Minister Atishi said the government was providing free treatment to more than 81,000 OPD patients daily and 65,806 IPD patients monthly in its 38 hospitals. She added that 64,000 people received free medicines, tests, and treatment at the 530 mohalla clinics every day.

While the AAP time and again lauds the Moholla clinics, the failure of the scheme cannot be ignored. In August 2023, senior Congressmen and the minister for health and family welfare in the government of Karnataka, Dinesh Gundu Rao visited the Delhi government’s mohalla clinic at Panchsheel Park on 4 August and termed it “overhyped.” He even went one step ahead and called his experience “disappointing.”

In 2022, a case of a toddler falling sick because of dextromethorphan poisoning in the Moholla clinic came to the fore. The child was taken seriously ill after she was administered dextromethorphan syrup by a mohalla clinic in the city. The toddler was then immediately rushed to Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital and put on a ventilator support system after suffering from respiratory failure.

In December 2021, 16 children were poisoned and admitted to Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital in New Delhi after allegedly consuming a cough syrup that was administered by a mohalla clinic run by the state government. 3 of those 16 children died in the incident.

It is worth noting that Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) had launched ‘Mohalla Clinics’ as their flagship healthcare model to strengthen the primary healthcare system in the city. However, several such incidents were reported after which the truth of the Moholla clinics was exposed.

Focus on freebies could derail Delhi’s capex

Ahead of the state assembly elections, the AAP in Delhi is focusing too much on providing freebies to civilians to obtain votes. Amid this, the revenue expenditure for the state could increase eventually burdening the state’s capital. A report by PRS Legislative Research highlights that in FY25, the revenue expenditure would increase by 8% over the revised estimates for FY24 while the capital outlay is estimated to decrease by 29% in the current fiscal over the RE for the last fiscal. “Between 2015-16 and 2021-22, on average, Delhi spent 39% lower on capital outlay than budgeted.  This was much higher than average underspending on capital outlay by states (19%),” it says.

In the given case, as Kejriwal claimed to have voiced concerns for the middle class, it felt more like he was mocking the entire community for not being on either side of major significance. He claimed that the centre was making the middle class the victim by imposing heavy taxes on them but eventually failed to provide any solution to the alleged problem.

Kejriwal further blatantly alleged the centre of ‘tax terrorism’ and attempted to compare the centre policies to the state amid the state assembly elections. Instead of making actual promises under the ‘Middle-Class Manifesto’, the party further asked the centre to ensure developmental upgradations for the middle class in the wake of the Delhi Assembly polls. This is as weird as the party and its policies are.

Delhi goes to polls on February 5th and the results for all 70 seats of the Legislative Assembly will be announced on February 8th.

Join OpIndia's official WhatsApp channel

  Support Us  

Whether NDTV or 'The Wire', they never have to worry about funds. In name of saving democracy, they get money from various sources. We need your support to fight them. Please contribute whatever you can afford

Siddhi Somani
Siddhi Somani
Siddhi is known for her satirical and factual hand in Social and Political writing. After completing her PG-Masters in Journalism, she did a PG course in Politics. The author meanwhile is also exploring her hand in analytics and statistics. (Twitter- @sidis28)

Related Articles

Trending now

Uttarakhand government notifies Uniform Civil Code, becomes the first state in India to do so

This Act does not apply to the Scheduled Tribes (ST) notified under Article 342 and Article 366 (25) of the Constitution and protected authority-empowered persons and communities under Part XXI have also been excluded from its purview.

One year of Ram Lalla’s Homecoming: A milestone in India’s Dharmic Renaissance and Civilisational Reawakening

The return of Ram Lalla to Ayodhya heralded a broader restoration of dharma and civilizational pride, inspiring continued devotion, and intensifying the fight to reclaim lost cultural heritage.
- Advertisement -