Virendra Sachdeva, president of the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Saturday criticised a statement by Saurabh Bharadwaj of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) regarding the Delhi government’s management of a Rs 1,000 crore loan.
Sachdeva said it is a normal administrative practice for state governments to raise loans from the Central government, the Reserve Bank of India, financial institutions, or the open market with the RBI’s approval to meet long- or short-term financial requirements.
He added that the previous government led by Arvind Kejriwal had also sought loans from the Centre in 2020 and 2022. According to him, the government headed by Atishi had also sought a loan of Rs 10,000 crore from the National Small Savings Fund of the Government of India in November 2024.
Sachdeva claimed that after being in power for 11 years, the AAP government had left behind a debt of about Rs 1.2 lakh crore, according to the Delhi government’s own figures for 2024–25.
The Delhi BJP chief further said that while the government led by Rekha Gupta has proposed a loan of only Rs 1,000 crore in its first year for development works, the AAP government had proposed borrowing Rs 10,000 crore just two months before elections for what he alleged were “electoral freebies”.
Sachdeva also said that before criticising the Delhi government, Bharadwaj should take into account the borrowing undertaken by the previous AAP government and the financial situation in Punjab, where the AAP-led government allegedly took loans worth Rs 50,000 crore in its first year and where the state’s total debt has now crossed Rs 4 lakh crore.