ith the Arvind Kejriwal-Delhi love affair entering its third year this Valentine’s Day, the Chief Minister was nothing short of an honest lover on Sunday, promising the moon to his people. The first tweet from Mr. Kejriwal on Sunday morning: “Last year, on this day, Delhi fell in love with AAP. This bonding is deep n everlasting [sic]”, aptly describes the relation between the people of Delhi and the AAP convenor.
It was on February 14, 2014 that he had resigned as the Chief Minister after just 49 days in power, and it took a while for the people to accept his apology for quitting. And then exactly a year later, on February 14, 2015, Delhi elected him back. As Mr. Kejriwal completed one year in office on Sunday, he presented his own report card of achievements and talked about future plans. Though most of the announcements were also made last month, the big-ticket announcement was waiving off pending water bill till November 30, 2015.
Since water and power had been two focus areas of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) before the elections, Mr. Kejriwal said he is very proud of his ministers and their teams for fulfilling the promise of free water and slashed electricity bills, which he said his government did soon after coming to power.
“We were hopeful that irregularities by discoms will come into view after the CAG audit. We are hopeful to win this case in the SC and electricity prices will further come down after CAG audit,” he added.
The Chief Minister, who is known for his catchy phrases, coined another one while delivering his speech at the NDMC Convention Centre. “ Paisa khaya nahi, paisa bachaya ,” he said taking a jibe at previous Sheila Dikshit government in reference to saving Rs. 300 crore of public money and timely completion of three flyovers.
However, for Mr Kejriwal it was the health department that was the outstanding student of the year. The AAP government, in its maiden budget, increased the Health budget allocation by 45 percent. The government, in the name of revamping the existing three-tier health sector has renamed it Mohalla Clinics (primary), Polyclinics (secondary) and Big Hospitals (tertiary). In fact, Mr Kejriwal inaugurated the first of the 20 polyclinics in Seelampur on Sunday afternoon and by the end of this year has promised 1,000 mohalla clinics.
At the end of the session, AAP cabinet along with chief secretary took questions from audience. This time, Mr Kejriwal, living up to his populist image, had also set up a direct ‘hotline’, where landline numbers were given to people in advance through advertisements and a ‘Q &A’ session with the CM was held.
Around 15 calls were taken and most of the questions were on water pipelines and electricity bills.
