NEW DELHI: Public Policy Research, a think tank of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has released a report claiming Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lied to the people on the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), detailing the finances of the Delhi government. The think tank said the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government failed to fulfill 80 per cent of the promises mentioned in its manifesto ahead of the last Assembly elections.
“The CAG report that the chief minister has alluded to is an assessment of the government’s income, expenditure and revenue between 2013-14 and 2017-18. He has conveniently ignored this fact, claiming instead, that the report speaks highly of his tenure from 2015 to 2020. He didn’t think twice before lying on the floor of the Assembly,” Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, national vice-president of the BJP, said.
According to the think tank’s report, the truth of Delhi’s fiscal deficit figure lies beyond 2017-18, which the CAG considered while compiling the report. The Delhi government went from a surplus of `113 crores in 2017-18 to a deficit of `689.16 crores in 2018-19 and the fiscal deficit rose astronomically to `5,901.90 crores, the think tank report claimed, adding that the chief minister concealed these unflattering numbers from the people.