How do you explain the 15 percent drop in the Congress votes then?I can’t point to only one cause. There were several. There was the anger against corruption within the Central government, and against the price rise in the whole country, and that anger came out, specially in Delhi, because the central government happens to be sitting here and because of the presence of the media here. People may hear about a scam in remote areas, but it’s impact is felt most severely in Delhi.Secondly, I think our party should have worked more collectively. It could also have been a kind of political fatigue: “it’s been 15 years, let’s have a change”. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had made promises that appealed to a lot of people living in posh areas — 50 percent reduction in power, 700 litres of free water, jobs for all, two
laptops, contract labour to be over and everybody made permanent. Now these are attractive things, but certainly not feasible. If it had been possible I would have reduced the power tariff by 70 percent, and we would have had the cheapest power tariff in the country. Of our summer total of 5,000 MW of power consumption, our generating capacity is only 300-400 MW; we import the rest from NTPC and others. We constructed one power plant in Bawana with a capacity of 1,500 MW, but we couldn't get enough gas. So it is only producing 100-150 MW.The point I am making is this. Delhi is not a power-producing city. We don’t have the land. Even our water comes from Haryana, Punjab and UP. It has no natural resources, no agriculture. So you are working in a very different economic scenario.
