Is handling of pandemic a strong political weapon?

The Aam Aadmi Party government is currently nearing half of its second term in power in Delhi, rounding up around seven years as the state government in the national capital. AAP came into power in Delhi in 2015, due to the major popularity quotient of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Now, a survey indicates that the popularity of the Kejriwal-led Delhi government has taken a major hit among the residents of the national capital, due to the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and rising pollution issues, both of which have been a major problem in Delhi.

According to a survey by Local Circles, the AAP government is not as popular in Delhi at the 2-year mark as it was during the start of the second term. As per the survey, only 1 in 3 Delhiites have approved the party’s performance as good or better.

Providing a detailed picture of the scenario painted by the survey by Local Circles, around 51% of all the Delhi residents are currently not happy with the performance of the government during the Covid-19 pandemic and the hazardous pollution levels in the city.

The Local Circles survey received over 37,500 responses covering residents from all 11 districts of Delhi where 67% of the respondents were men and 33% were women. The survey further states that only 42 percent of the residents rate the AAP government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic as good.

Meanwhile, over 51 percent of the Delhiites rated the handling of the pandemic as poor or worse, due to the crisis surrounding hospital beds and medical supplies during the second wave, in April and May 2021.

When it comes to the pollution levels, only 31 percent of the Delhi residents rate the Delhi government’s efforts to improve air quality in the last 2 years as good, while 51 percent of the residents rated their efforts as poor or worse.

As per the Local Circles survey, around 31 percent of the Delhi residents rated the AAP government’s efforts to reduce corruption in the last 2 years as good, while 45 percent of Delhiites rated their efforts as poor or worse.

The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic was especially brutal for Delhi as the lack of availability of hospital beds and medicines led to a lot of people criticizing the AAP government. The black-marketing of medicines was also one of the major issues raised by the residents of Delhi during the second wave.