5 books to help you make sense of the Delhi election results
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The political drama unfolding in Delhi for the last few months is finally over. As votes are counted and a new chief minister is ushered into office, it’s time to take a step back from the noise and review the record of the past 10 years.
There's nothing like a solid book to help you make sense of the good, bad and ugly parts of what we are leaving behind and everything that’s there to come. Although written by an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) insider, it’s worth reading this account of the key areas in which, the writer claims, Delhi improved under Arvind Kejriwal’s rule. Shah focuses on education, health, air pollution, transport, electricity and water—and the bar he sets for comparison is the fabled Gujarat Model.
Given the inhuman medical crisis in the city during covid and the worsening air quality each year, there isn’t much to write home, but reforms in education and electricity have been the exceptions (Penguin Random House, ₹799). If there’s one area in which the AAP government has made a positive impact in Delhi, it is school education. Public sector services in India don’t inspire faith, but the focused intervention through governance and policy change have improved the quality of education in state-funded schools in Delhi.
In the process, AAP also restored some of the credibility that had eroded due to years of corruption and misgovernance by previous governments. Aiyar, a scholar, looks at this phenomenon through data-driven research (Oxford University Press, ₹1,250). AAP & Down: An Insider’s Story of India’s Most Controversial Party by Mayank Gandhi with Shrey Shah This is a former AAP member’s disillusioned tell-all about the rise and fall of the party—from being a votary of
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