“Free” Schemes Lose Luster as Civic Mess Drowns AAP

Take a look at the map of electoral results for the 2025 assembly elections for Delhi and you can see a saffron wash across the National Capital. The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) colours are scattered across its strongholds in the South East, the densely packed constituencies in Central Delhi and a handful of victories in East Delhi. The party’s defeat is comprehensive.

If there is one factor that looms large in AAP’s defeat it is its abysmal record of urban governance in Delhi. It is better to call it urban apathy given the state of civic infrastructure in the National Capital. Far from converging with “Paris”, Delhi now resembles a run down and ramshackle city.

AAP was heralded as a new experiment in Indian politics and Delhi eminently suited its brand of non-caste, non-class politics that was focused on urban governance. Schools, hospitals, water and civic amenities were its watchwords. But a decade after ruling Delhi, it is civic governance issues that have cost the party dearly. In constituencies in East, the ones that border UP and ones where civic amenities are badly lacking the party was trounced badly. Chances are that names like Ghonda, Karawal Nagar and Mustafabad are not familiar to many people. But ask the voters who live in these constituencies and they will tell you that promises of potable water, roads, clean drains and garbage free public spaces have not been met. Then there are “bigger” issues that AAP did not even attempt to “solve”: the National Capital’s crisis of air pollution and its mountains of garbage and the rising number of landfills. These affected the peripheries of the Capital more than other constituencies. The AAP lost in all of them. From the North to the South and from West to East, the BJP gained at its cost.

The issue of air pollution—that acquires hazardous proportions every winter—is a case in point. A part of the problem is the massive dose of pollutants that arise from stubble burning in states like Punjab and Haryana. AAP is in power in Punjab where it has helplessly watched farmers’ burn stubble without any let or hindrance. The state government and civil society organisations that back farmers there demand that the Centre pay money to these farmers for not burning crop residue. Were such demands not couched in sophisticated English they would be called blackmail. The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), an organisation constituted by the Centre, is left to manage the situation by regulating activities like construction, vehicular movement and the like as emergency measures. The basic causes like burning of crop residue, ones that require political management, are beyond its control. In its ten years in power in Delhi, and nearly three in Punjab, it made no attempt to address the problem. This, too, angered the residents of Delhi.

Even at the height of the election campaign in Delhi and just weeks before its defeat, the AAP was busy blaming others for its failures. AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal—who is staring at defeat in the New Delhi constituency—blamed Haryana for “poisoning” water supply to Delhi.

The results on Saturday show that Delhi has grown tired and weary of such excuses.

Arvind KejriwalAtishiDelhi Assembly Election 2025governanceinfrastructureManish SisodiaWeb Exclusive