New Delhi: Launching a scathing attack on the BJP-led Delhi government, AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday accused the ruling party of plunging the city back into an era of blackouts.
The former chief minister said that the situation could worsen as temperatures rise in the coming weeks.
There was no immediate response from the BJP on Kejriwal's charges.
“On April 9, the peak demand in Delhi was 5,462 MW. Due to this, there was no electricity for several hours in many places in Delhi last night. Last year, the peak demand reached about 8,500 MW. Still, there was no power outage anywhere in Delhi during our government,” Kejriwal said in a post on X.
“What will happen in the coming weeks when the heat in Delhi increases and the demand for electricity also increases?” he asked and called the current power crisis a result of the BJP’s “misgovernance”.
“In the last ten years, we have worked hard to fix Delhi's electricity system. It is said that it takes years to fix anything but it can be damaged in just two days,” he added.
The AAP leaders followed suit, accusing the BJP of mismanagement and claiming that the capital’s power infrastructure, carefully built over a decade, was being undone in a matter of days.
The AAP said that Wednesday night saw widespread outages across the city despite relatively moderate demand.
“This never happened under the AAP government even when demand soared past 8,500 MW last year. The BJP has plunged Delhi back into the dark days of power cuts,” the party said in a statement.
Delhi's peak power demand surged to 5,462 MW at 3.27 pm on Wednesday — the highest recorded this year so far, according to data from the State Load Dispatch Centre (SLDC).
The city's peak power demand could touch 9,000 MW this season.
Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Atishi, said that she received hundreds of complaints throughout the night from across the city.
“People across Delhi spent the night without electricity. The BJP’s Delhi Government is sleeping while Delhi is suffering,” she said on X.
Delhi Power Minister Ashish Sood had earlier said that the outages were in the past part of “routine maintenance” to make sure the city is prepared for the upcoming summer.
“We are a 40-day-old government, yet they claim we have disrupted a system that was perfect for the last 10 years. There is no electricity crisis,” he said, claiming that the power cuts were routine and happened every year during this time.
The AAP dismissed the Delhi government’s explanation of “maintenance work” as a cover-up.
“Delhiites are exposing this lie themselves by posting videos and complaints from across the city,” said Atishi.
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