As per experts, it is widely accepted that smaller administrative units make the government more accessible to ordinary citizens. The Polity Experts, Administrators, and Economists, too, have found that smaller states or systems have performed better. Regardless, Delhiites witnessed an unexpected move by BJP that led the Modi Government to unify East, South, and North Delhi Municipal Corporation into one centralized Municipal corporation of Delhi (MCD) as it was earlier. BJP was alleged to make a move for poll-bound electoral gain in MCD.
Looking at the history, the MCD was trifurcated by the Congress-led Sheela Dixit government back in 2012 while BJP was ruling MCD. And the BJP has been ruling MCD for the last 15 years. Although dividing the MCD into smaller units was expected to improve governance, what employees of the organization and the ordinary people witnessed was a massive decline in its functioning. The primary reason given unification was financial. Still, the trifurcated MCD did not show the expected improvements. And the Delhiites are hoping yet to see any achievement that could be celebrated.
The AAP-led Delhi state's finance committee provided quite reduced funds as claimed by BJP. The ruling AAP obviously would not want their rival BJP to perform efficiently in MCD. On the other hand, BJP has an excuse for not getting funds to perform its duties while not openly discussing its own tax collection, making Delhi suffer. Consequently, there was not even enough money to pay the employees in recent years. As the Bharatiya Janata Party had won a majority of the seats in the 2017 MCD elections, the AAP-led Delhi government treated BJP-ruled MCD the exact way as the central government, which has been termed in Indian politics as “stepmotherly treatment.”
