Propaganda politics at its best
Propaganda politics seems to be the order of the day. Political parties are harping on propaganda to win people’s confidence but it has its own perils
Joseph Goebbels famously said that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. Our political leadership seems to be following these principles and manufactured lies are spread to mislead the masses.
Congress is dying a slow death and many contenders want to fill the vacuum. Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is pushing hard and going beyond the established principles of politics to project itself as an alternative to the ruling BJP. In the recent series of attacks, AAP is accusing the Modi government of giving undue financial benefits to corporates by writing-off the loans of more than Rs. Ten lakh crores. A loan write-off is a technical term that is often used to sanitise the balance sheet and get some taxation benefits. A write-off doesn’t mean that the bank will stop chasing recoveries. A loan waiver is different in which banks waive off the amount and no efforts are made for further recovery. It is naïve to assume that Kejriwal and the team are not aware of these technicalities.
RBI data shows that corporate loan accounts which were subjected to restructuring have decreased consistently after 2015. Corporate loans and overall loans restructured in 2015 were Rs. 180,299 crore & Rs. 476,853 crores which came down to Rs. 22,941 crore and Rs. 143,010 crores in 2021. Insolvency law was implemented in 2016 and it has been a huge success. Cases involving amounts worth approximately Rs. Seven lakh crores have been resolved under IBC. Capital adequacy is another major indicator to measure the health of the banking industry and it has improved after the introduction of IBC.
This entire discussion originated after PM Modi criticised freebies and Supreme Court also commented that freebie culture is not sustainable. AAP is no longer new to politics and they have been ruling Delhi for almost 8 years. CM Kejriwal often highlights that Delhi is a revenue surplus state despite giving subsidies but he hides that Delhi has been a revenue surplus state even since 2004-05. Delhi is a revenue surplus state primarily because pension liability of the Delhi govt. employees and expenditure of Delhi Police are borne by the central government. This luxury is not available to other states and perhaps this is the reason for Punjab CM asking the Centre to fund his irrational poll promises. Delhi CM conveniently skips the fiscal deficit situation and increased borrowings. Delhi had close to nineteen thousand crores of fiscal deficit in 2021-22 and the estimated fiscal deficit for 2022-23 is fourteen thousand crores.
Transparency has gone for a toss during the AAP regime which is evident from the fact that annual accounts of various State Public Sector Enterprises (SPSEs) and autonomous bodies were not submitted to C&AG for audit. Entrepreneurship culture is missing in the government and the net worth of various SPSEs has been completely eroded. A few notable names are Delhi Power Company Limited and Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) which had a negative net worth of Rs. 37,125 crores on 31 March 2020. Even Delhi Jal Board’s (DJB) annual accounts are not published after 2017 and opposition is alleging a huge scam in DJB. C&AG has already highlighted that concessionaires by Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (DSIIDC) have been given undue financial benefits. The AAP government also canceled the liquor licenses after the recommendation of CBI inquiry on the new Excise Policy which bypassed the rules.
Health and education sector reforms are highlighted as a major achievement of Kejriwal. However, facts and figures reveal the dismal performance of the Delhi government. Data published by the government shows that the number of teachers for primary till secondary schools has reduced and investment in education as a percentage of overall expenditure almost remained at the 2014 level. Pass percentage in class 10 for Delhi govt. schools and India were 81.27 and 94.4 respectively for 2022 which punctures the whole narrative of education reform. The number of hospitals in Delhi decreased from 95 in 2014-15 to 88 in 2021-22 and if this decline is sought to be offset with Mohalla clinics then there could be no cruel joke on Delhiites than this.
Delhi is struggling to control pollution but the number of fleets operated by DTC has come down from 5,223 in 2014 to 3,762 in 2020 (pre-Covid era). Fleet utilisation percentage and daily average passenger have also gone down in the AAP era. Delhi government is giving electricity subsidy and Capex amount is diverted to fund this. Expenditure in the energy sector was 4.15% of total plan expenditure which came down to 0.03% in 2021.
Goebbels also said that propaganda is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Maybe Arvind Kejriwal is a die-hard fan of propaganda politics and using his lies as a means to amass political power.
(Writer is a chartered accountant, author, and public policy analyst. The views expressed are personal.)
Source: The Pioneer
