AAP announces poll manifesto for Delhi elections; promises 15 ‘Kejriwal’s guarantees’

AAP leaders during the launch of their party’s manifesto for the Delhi Assembly elections, on January 27, 2025, in Delhi.
| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal on Monday announced the party’s 15-point manifesto for the Delhi Assembly election, ‘Kejriwal ki guarantee’ (Kejriwal’s guarantee), with the promise on employment for youth getting the most importance.

“The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), Congress, and other parties make promises during elections, but they are just hollow slogans under different names. When we started using the term ‘guarantee’, they also began using it. But they have devalued the term ‘guarantee’. However, this is Kejriwal’s guarantee, not Modi’s. This is a firm guarantee, not a hollow one like theirs. Today, we are announcing 15 ‘Kejriwal ki guarantees’ which will be fulfilled in the next five years,” Mr. Kejriwal said at a press conference at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi.

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“As per Central government data, Delhi has the lowest unemployment. National level unemployment is 6% but in Delhi, it is 2%. We wish that there is no one who is unemployed in Delhi. We are making plans to give jobs to every youth in Delhi,” Mr. Kejriwal said.

All 15 points in the manifesto have been announced by the party over the last one-and-a-half years in the run-up to the Assembly election, including the ‘Mahila Samman Yojana’ and ‘Sanjeevani Yojana’. There are no new promises.

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Other promises include the waiving off wrong water bills, extending benefits of free water and electricity to tenants, and ₹18,000 per month to priests and granthis.

In the run up to the 2020 election, the AAP had announced its manifesto with a 10-point ‘Kejriwal ki guarantee’. Earlier this month, Mr. Kejriwal had said that he could not fulfil three of those promises, but work had been done on all three of them, which he reiterated on Monday.

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“The next three guarantees, we had made in 2020 too. We had said that we would give 24-hour water supply. We had said that we would clean the Yamuna. We had said that we would make roads in Delhi of European standards. But we could not fulfil these three promises. There was the COVID-19 pandemic for two-and-a-half years, and then we were jailed in fake cases. In the next five years, we will fulfil these three promises. We have funds and full plans for them,” the former Delhi Chief Minister said.

However, other promises in the 2020 manifesto, including reduction in air pollution; underground cables to bring electricity to every household; and pucca houses for slum dwellers, remain unfulfilled.

Mr. Kejriwal claimed that, in total, families in Delhi were currently saving ₹25,000 per month because of the policies of the AAP government. “If you press the wrong button, if you press the ‘lotus’ (the BJP’s election symbol) button, an additional ₹25,000 per month will be added to each family’s expenses,” he said.

Hitting out at the AAP, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva alleged that the 15 guarantees issued by Mr. Kejriwal on Monday in the name of a manifesto were merely false promises that had neither been fulfilled during the decade-long rule of the party nor would they ever be. He also challenged Mr. Kejriwal to debate on any of the 15 “false guarantees” with any spokesperson of the BJP.