Why we should be wary of the recent verdict given in Delhi Assembly Elections ?

Delhiites, despite being busy in valentine's week, have given a resounding and overwhelming verdict to Mr. Kejriwal and his political party AAP, by giving them 67 seats out of 70 in the recently concluded Delhi Assembly election. Amassing 54% of the vote share is something unheard of in this highly diverse and segregated democracy where religious sentiments still continue to play a greater role in deciding the fate of elections.  

The judgement seems to be loud and clear that Delhiites want a govt. who won't just rule but would act as their representatives, where the voice of the common man is heard, where their problems are being addressed, where inequality would remain dead and buried, where there will be no space and time for communal differences and violence. These seem to be some of the core issues based on which Delhi has given its verdict.

But, are these the only reasons for this kind of massive verdict in favour of AAP. I guess no. Looking at the complete picture, we can easily deduce the important role that freebies have played in this election. The outrageous, irrational, and over the board promises made by Mr. Kejriwal have played a greater role in this election than estimated by the so called pundits. Promises of constructing a school every 3.67 days and a college every 5.45 days over the period of next 5 years look beyond the scope of reality in the current context. Promises of drastically reducing the electricity and water prices have definitely gone down well with the electorates but the question still stands whether Mr. Kejriwal would be able to achieve this considering that Delhi as a UT is always dependent on other neighboring states for both resources. 

The problems just don’t end here. AAP, as a party in power, needs to understand that even the governments are required to maintain balance sheets. What we have heard till now is the expenditure part only. They will be requiring huge sums of money to uphold their claims and promises. I am still not sure where these revenues will come from. We still haven’t seen a plan in AAP’s political rulebook which can be effectively used for generating some revenues and I am not sure whether Mr. Kejriwal would ever be concerned about it or he will just try to happily pass on the burden for his freebies on central govt. When 60% of our villages are deprived of electricity connections even, forget about getting electricity, we surely can’t afford to give cheap electricity to the well-off section of the society. 

I hope Mr. Kejriwal is smart enough to understand that India at this stage really can't survive on freebies. Prudence and austerity have to be the sisters of governance in this time of ruckus and uncertainty. If he really wants to make an image for himself and his party at the national level, he needs to come out of that freebie zone to understand the realities of ground. At least, we are getting a picture of the structure that central govt. wants to implement in this country. Whether “Make in India” or not, at least we have a plan on paper from Mr. Modi. I guess letting economics run over politics is something which will decide whether Mr. Kejriwal would ever become an important player at the centre or not.

Inclusive growth: A myth in India

India, in the last decade, has been the 2^nd fastest growing nation after china. Its economy grew by an average of 7.4% per annum. But, despite registering impressive growth performance over a period of ten years, India still remains an impoverished and poverty-stricken nation. One-third of the counties population struggle everyday to even earn food to survive, leave aside the access to education, health and other basic necessities of life. It is appalling that India stands at 141^st place out of 169 countries in UN’s Human Development Index report released in 2013, even behind some of the third world African countries. So, why India hasn’t been able to improve the living conditions for the people in rural areas despite recording great growth numbers on papers?


The answer to this is very simple. India, with all its clamouring about impressive growth numbers, hasn’t focused on “inclusive growth”. Inclusive growth as a basic concept focuses on equitable sharing of the benefits of the economic growth so that each and every section of the society, irrespective of its economic conditions, gets its benefits. This sadly hasn’t happened in India. Most of the development has been confined only to metros and urban areas whereas rural areas have been left behind, sulking in poverty and abjection. This inequitable distribution of the benefits has resulted in disparity of income as rich have become richer and poor have become poorer. This kind of economic disparity is hazardous as it can hamper the long term growth prospects of a nation. Huge economic inequalities also result in high corruption and plutocracy, the rule by wealthy.


The failure in achieving inclusive growth has started to haunt India as most of its rural development centric policies have begun to fail because of the ineffective implementation and huge corruption by the wealthy and powerful, thus depriving poor of the basic necessities and thereby, letting them die in poverty. Failure of the Bharat nirman Yojana, a scheme started by the govt. of India, is a perfect example of it.


Overall development of a nation can happen only when each section of the society prospers and gets chances to grow. Focusing on the growth in urban and metros only won’t make India a better place to live. It would only help upper-middle class, not the poor. It’s the interior underdeveloped regions where we have to shift our focus on. Giving poor more opportunities would improve their quality of life, which in turn would boost India’s economic growth. Apart from just creating policies and allocating funds for them, we need to ensure that policies are better implemented and their benefits are reaching to the poor. Education, health, job creation remain the areas of attention. Inclusive growth, taking everyone together is the way forward.