The elections to Delhi Assembly are scheduled on 5 February and the run up to the elections has already generated so much political heat. New Delhi is the national capital of India and Delhi is just another Union Territory (UT). Yet the media focus on the Delhi elections can beat any important state assembly election. The stakes are indeed high and thus we are witnessing high voltage political drama. There is a need to look at the Delhi elections from the national perspective, which also impacts the image of India as a world power.
Delhi has a different administrative setup as compared to other UTs. The state assembly has 70 legislative assembly members and the Delhi government is headed by a Chief Minister. Being a national capital territory, a Lieutenant Governor, appointed by the Central Government wields considerable power. In addition, the state is looked after by Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Being the hub of the Indian Armed Forces, there is Delhi Cantonment Board, directly under the Ministry of Defence. Then there is Delhi Police, which operates directly under the control of Ministry of Home Affairs. There are seven Members of Parliament from Delhi but they do not directly influence the day-to-day administration.
Delhi is officially called National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). National Capital Region (NCR) was created to plan and manage the growth and development around the national capital New Delhi. The NCR comprises of Delhi and several districts surrounding it from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The notable districts which are part of NCR are Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad and Alwar. Thus, the administration in the NCT directly affects the state of growth and development in the rest of the NCR. Over a period of time, there has been improvement in the connectivity through road, rail and metro network, mostly with central assistance. Therefore, the complete NCR is almost a homogenous entity now.
The last decade plus of the governance in Delhi has been of indifferent sort, where one has witnessed continuous friction between the central government, represented by the Lieutenant Governor (LG) and the Chief Minister (CM) of Delhi. A new political entity emerged in Delhi, which promised a lot of freebies to the people of Delhi. This new party had emerged from the anti-corruption stance against the Congress government in the centre. The novelty of the anti-corruption plank caught the popular public imagination. Aided by the promised freebies, it has managed to retain power in Delhi for more than a decade now. A lot of it had to do with the complete decline of the Congress Party from the Delhi politics.
After the initial euphoria about the new party, the governance in Delhi became a challenge. Obviously, the only way out was to increase the quantum of freebies. With lack of experience in governance, the party in power in Delhi resorted to glaring publicity and full-blown media coverage of its so-called achievements. It also worked. In fact, this model of freebies-based culture in India can be attributed to the Delhi model of governance. The culture of freebies has spread far and wide in the Indian political landscape and it has virtually become impossible to win elections on good governance alone.
Delhi government could afford the freebies culture because Delhi is a revenue surplus state, i.e. the income is more than the expenditure. With major industry and corporate houses, high consumption, major tourist attraction and presence of major offices, Delhi generates adequate revenue and thus the state has been able to sustain freebies so far. The money being spent on freebies is supposed to be utilised for the development and infrastructure. But there is a limit to the level of freebies and here lies the danger of going bankrupt, as it happened in Sri Lanka in 2020-21. The system of freebies is contagious and the competitive political spirit may incur even more expenditure in the future. In addition, the central government has major stake in keeping Delhi functional. The central government has to spend extra funds just to keep Delhi going. Thus, the negative impact of freebies culture may not be directly visible to a cursory visitor to Delhi.
During my military service, I had couple of tenures in the Army Headquarters. In addition, I have travelled to Delhi frequently, the last one in the second week of January this year. I have gone to many corners of Delhi, away from the clean and green Lutyens Delhi and the clean cantonment areas. The interiors of Delhi present an abysmal picture and many of these reminded me of Dharavi slums of Mumbai. It really pained me to see the poor habitat, broken roads, open sewers and dirty drinking water that the poor residents are coping with. It downed on me that Delhi is far from being a world class city.
New Delhi has 157 embassies/ high commissions and these diplomatic missions get to see a very negative image of Delhi. For a country that is world’s fifth largest economy, a world-class capital is an essential requirement to hold international events. While Bharat Mandapam has been a dream project of Narendra Modi government, the approach to it from various corners of the city are not very pleasing to the eyes. While the Modi government at the centre has done big projects to improve the infrastructure in Delhi, the last mile connectivity and improvement of the habitat has been a major casualty under the perpetually cribbing party.
With constant friction and bickering between the ruling party in Delhi and the centre, no major infrastructure project like hospitals, schools, colleges, better roads, surface transport, civic amenities etc. has come up in the last decade. There is big load on the existing infrastructure which itself is crumbling because of poor maintenance. It is a sorry state of affairs, which has only resulted in political blame game. One prime example of this is high level of pollution in Delhi where no serious effort has been made to improve the quality of air. With the intervention of Delhi High Court, only preventive measures like Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) are imposed in Delhi, which essentially freeze major construction and industrial activity in Delhi. Such an action pushes Delhi further back.
The survival of the ruling dispensation in Delhi is based purely on anti-centre stance. In addition, it has been accused of high-level corruption. Their situation is similar to what the ruling dispensation in Pakistan which survives purely on hate India campaign. Therefore, this party is unlikely to cooperate with the centre in the larger interest of Delhi. So, Delhi may face another five years of confrontational politics, which only harms the poor and the middle class of Delhi. Besides this sort of political dissonance impacts law and order, routine policing, VIP security and traffic management. Delhi is always on terror attack radar and overall internal security from terror threats requires close coordination between the centre and UT administration.
Time has come for the Delhi electorate to decide between progression and confrontation. Progression is represented by a vision to make Delhi a world class city with best habitat, best roads, best hospitals, best schools & colleges, best road transport, best metro etc. befitting a world class capital city and the NCR. Progression also means clean air, green Delhi and high gross happiness index for the common man. In my opinion, the progression of Delhi is going to be a tough task, given the damage done in the last decade. Yes, freebies are needed for the marginalised sections of society but it does not absolve the Delhi government to neglect development of the city. I hope and pray for Delhi to be a dream city for the rich and poor, corporate executive and a daily wage earner, educated and the less educated and so on. In short, India needs a world class capital in New Delhi towards its growth journey into a developed nation. A critical decision awaits the Delhi electorate.
