OPINION

With elections in few states now round the corner, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is once again on his ‘power charity’ binge promising free 300 units of power in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Goa. He is hawking the Delhi Model of subsidizing power charges.

It’s true that Kejirwal has subsidized power charges since 2014 but this was made possible through the power reforms which was implemented in Delhi in 2002. If a present-day researcher on power reforms in the national Capital were to do a project, the keywords would be SBI Caps, Discom, Transco, Genco and power theft.

According to a recent report, power theft in the national Capital has come down from 2002 to 2020 from 55% to 7.5%. In technical terms, this is called the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses, primarily caused by theft. The gains on this ground are also to be understood in terms growth in power supply, from a power demand of 2,879 megawatt in 2002 to 7,409 mega in 2019, which amounts in an increase of 157.3%.

On coming to power in 1998, one of the first major policy decision taken by the Sheila Dikshit government was to privatize power supply, for which SBI Caps was commissioned to prepare a roadmap. The consulting company suggested unbundling the government run Delhi Vidyut Board into three companies with three different mandates – power generation (Genco), power transmission (Transco) and power distributions (Discom).

Marie Antoinette, the queen of France during the Revolution, was known as Madame Deficit. France’s financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending. Often attributed to her, though there is no direct evidence to it, Antoinette on shortage of bread for farmers was believed to have said, “Let them eat cakes.”

When we place her story in the current state of civic affairs of Delhi, we have a government which deliberates on who gets the Bharat Ratna and lesser Padma awards even as under heavy rains, the roads first turn into drains and then sink causing danger to life and property. Caught in the impregnable traffic jams on the city roads, the poor denizens are greeted by the pictures of a smiling chief minister Arvind Kejriwal wishing well for our Olympic squad.

Delhi's contribution to the Indian squad is less than that of a university in Punjab, it’s in single digit but the government has splurged multiple crores on the publicity drive. Carrying forward on bread and cake bit, the government has been on a publicity binge for opening sports and skill universities in the national Capital even as the faculty and employees of the Delhi Government-funded Delhi University colleges starve as their salary for past three months remains unpaid.

Judicial interventions are often decried by the governments of the day as judicial activism. Judicial activism has been described variously by those affected by it. Some say it to be a practice in the judiciary wherein judgments are delivered based on ‘personal opinions’ rather than on existing laws. The other view is that it’s a practice in judiciary of protecting or expanding individual rights through decisions that depart from established precedent or are independent of or in opposition to supposed constitutional or legislative intent.

Whatever the definition but for the citizens of this country facing, as the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana had recently put it, tyranny of electoral politics, judiciary has come to rescue many a times. The most recent examples being the direction given to the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments to suspend annual ‘kawad yatra’ and the reprimand to the Karala government for easing lockdown provisions for Eid prayers.

It’s in this context that a recent judgment of Delhi High Court is of much relevance. It may come to illustrate the tyrannical traits of electoral politics to a great extent. The order seeks to caution those holding public office that the promises made by them are not in individual capacity but as representative of the office and they are legally enforceable.

The judgment, by Justice Prathiba M Singh seeks to remind the political leaders of their duties preserved in the business of governance but forgotten in midst of political fracas. Good governance is judged by those being governed trusting the ability those who govern. This trust can be kept only if promises made are finally and legally sustainable.

The political parties of every hue in our country have great belief in what Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw had said. The creator of classics like  Man and Superman, Pygmalion and Saint Joan, Shaw exercised great influence over western theatre, culture and politics during his lifetime and thereafter. He once observed, “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul’s support.” Shaw’s comment was inspired by the Biblical saying, “to unclothe Peter to clothe Paul.”

Last week on getting the diesel tank of my vehicle filled, I was rattled as the fuel pump helper raised a bill of Rs 3600. In 2013-14, when the Achche Din (good days as promised by challenger to the throne Narendra Modi) were still to dawn, the tank of a similar vehicle would get filled for Rs 2200. Thanks to the lockdown, as the need for filling the fuel tank arose after quite a while but the price of diesel came to actually pinch.

It pinched harder when one learned that the average price of Indian crude oil basket between 2014-15 and 2020-21 has dropped by almost half — from $84.16/bbl to $44.82/bbl. The average price of Indian crude oil basket was lowest in 2020-21 since 2005-06, but the central excise duty on petrol and the tax collected by the centre has increased by more than three times since 2014-15.

The departure of Dr Harshvardhan from Ministry of Health last week earned him sympathies from most unusual quarters — the leaders belonging to the Opposition Congress party. Former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh in a post on the tweeter said that the Lok Sabha member from Chandni Chowk had been made a scapegoat for “monumental failures at the highest level — nowhere else.” The Congress leader also said the former Health Minister is a good man.

The head of media cell of Congress party, Randeep Surjewala indirectly defended Vardhan saying that the National Disaster Management Authority, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was responsible for the ‘criminal mismanagement’ of Covid-19. These comments obviously were made to embarrass the Prime Minister and not in any genuine sympathy ‘good man’ as Ramesh would prefer calling Vardhan.