Delhi: Congress promises to double free power units after BJP says it'll continue schemes

Fight for Delhi seems to have boiled down to the battle over free power and water schemes.

While BJP leader Ramvir Singh Bidhuri has promised that the party will continue the free electricity and water supply schemes and bus rides for women if it comes to power, the Congress’s city chief Devender Yadav has claimed his party will double the units of electricity provided for free if it assumes power.

Promise of strict checks

The AAP-led Delhi government currently provides free electricity up to 200 units a month. Yadav said on Tuesday (December 3) that the Congress will provide free electricity up to 400 units a month.

Yadav said in a statement that the Congress would also implement strict checks and balances to stop discoms from “looting” consumers with inflated power bills.

Addressing participants at the Delhi Nyay Yatra in the Kirari assembly segment, Yadav said the Congress fulfilled all its election promises in every state the party assumed power.

Also read: 'Revdi Par Charcha': Kejriwal challenges BJP, promises to give freebies

Kejriwal’s “excuses”

However, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal only devised excuses for his failure to execute the free schemes and blamed the lieutenant governor and others for his own incompetence to translate words into action, he alleged.

Kejriwal had promised to transform Delhi into Paris and London. He had claimed before the 2022 Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections that AAP would clear the three garbage mounds in the national capital as soon as it was elected to power in those polls, the Congress leader claimed.

However, garbage remains strewn everywhere, making people’s lives miserable, Yadav alleged.

Bidhuri’s statement

On Monday, Bidhuri said in a press conference that AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and other party leaders were trying to “mislead” the public, spreading “false propaganda” that the BJP would stop the free schemes if it formed the government in Delhi.

“After the BJP’s victory in the assembly elections due in February, free facilities such as 200 units of electricity, 20,000 litres of water and bus travel for women will continue,” Bidhuri said in a statement.

These facilities will be provided in a better way and a decision will also be taken to implement the Ayushman Bharat health scheme in the first Cabinet meeting of a BJP government, he said.

Also read: Kejriwal rules out alliance with Congress for Delhi polls

AAP’s retort

Reacting to the BJP statement, AAP said if the saffron party “even mistakenly comes to power in Delhi”, it would end the schemes for free electricity and bus travel for women.

“The BJP previously opposed both these schemes of the AAP government and has been unable to provide free electricity and free bus travel in any of the 20 states it governs,” AAP said in a statement.

Claims and counter-claims

The senior BJP leader also claimed that 40 per cent of the people in Delhi did not have access to clean water, adding that around 2,500 of the 7,500 samples collected by the Delhi Jal Board had failed.

He further claimed that despite the Delhi government subsidy, “unreasonable” surcharges on electricity rates were Rs 9 per unit for domestic and Rs 17-18 for commercial consumers.

Responding to the charge, AAP said the BJP made tall promises before polls but, once in power, it dismissed those as “electoral jumlas”.

“If the BJP is copying our schemes and claiming it will deliver the same services as AAP did, why would the people of Delhi settle for a duplicate? They will choose the original Arvind Kejriwal, who has already proven he delivers what he promises,” AAP asserted.

(With agency inputs)