‘Prasads of misery’: AAP slams BJP over soaring power bills, 14-hour blackouts

New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday launched a scathing attack on the BJP-led Delhi government, accusing it of delivering “prasads of misery” in the form of inflated electricity bills, arbitrary fee hikes, and widespread demolition of jhuggis. Senior AAP leader and Delhi State President Saurabh Bharadwaj said the BJP had betrayed its own promises just four months into power.

“BJP seems to have taken a vow that no section will be spared, they are determined to hand over the ‘prasads’ of their governance to every citizen,” said Bharadwaj at a press conference. “First they raised school fees, then bulldozers ran over jhuggis, and now Delhi is suffering both inflated bills and power cuts.”

Bharadwaj took aim at the recent hike in Power Purchase Adjustment Charges (PPAC), which have gone up by 10.5 per cent. He accused the BJP of hypocrisy, recalling a BJP event from July 2024 where leaders had slammed a previous 8 per cent PPAC hike under the AAP government. “When this hike happened in 2024, BJP leaders had publicly called Arvind Kejriwal a thief. Virendra Sachdeva himself said it was proof of corruption,” Bharadwaj stated.

Challenging the BJP leadership, he added, “If an 8 per cent hike made the then government thieves, what does a 10.5 per cent hike make you? Will you now call yourselves ‘mahachors’?”

He also questioned why BJP had not removed the 8 per cent pension charge from electricity bills, a demand the party itself had championed before taking power. “BJP had said that consumers should not be made to pay pension for electricity company employees. If that’s what they believed, then why hasn’t their government removed the 8 per cent pension charge yet?” he asked.

Highlighting severe outages across the capital, Bharadwaj said, “Delhi is now facing long and unbearable power cuts. In Chhatarpur, the power went out at 8 PM and returned only at 10 AM the next day, a 14-hour blackout.”

He concluded, “First they raised PPAC, then failed to prevent power cuts, and now they’re collecting pension charges they themselves opposed. The people of Delhi are watching and waiting for answers.”