New York Mayor Zoharan Mamdani has made many such announcements like Arvind Kejriwal had made in the Delhi elections.
Zohran Mamdani of Indian origin has become the Mayor of New York. He has won the election, in which the blacks and Asian people of America played an important role. The maximum number of GenZ aged between 15 to 29 years voted for Mamdani. 78 percent youth of this age group voted in his favor. The victory of Mamdani, who is considered a strong critic of US President Donald Trump, is being considered as a referendum against Trump’s economic policies.
Mamdani sees great hope for NRIs. They feel that with Mamdani becoming mayor, the danger of them being thrown out of America has been averted. However, amid all this, Mamdani is now being called America’s Arvind Kejriwal. Let us find out why this is so?
Promised freebies to win the election
Zoharan Mamdani has announced the same kind of freebies to win the elections as Arvind Kejriwal had announced in Delhi. Zohran Mamdani had promised that if he wins the elections, he will arrange for free travel in buses. Also, to reduce the ever increasing housing cost, he had announced that the rule of not increasing house rents for the next four years will be implemented in New York. Apart from this, he had promised to build two lakh houses for the poor with government money and open ration shops to provide cheap ration.
These promises of Zoharan Mamdani attracted the middle class and immigrants and Mamdani was elected the first Muslim mayor of South Asian origin of New York. On similar lines, Arvind Kejriwal won the assembly elections in Delhi by announcing free bus travel, electricity and water.
AAP national coordinator Arvind Kejriwal
This situation is also like Arvind Kejriwal
However, like Arvind Kejriwal, it will be very difficult for Mamdani to live up to these promises. Just as when there was Arvind Kejriwal’s government in Delhi, there was BJP government at the Center and the Delhi government was not getting any special help from the Centre. Mamdani has also been in a similar situation. When he takes over as the Mayor of New York in January next year, he has little hope of getting any help from the federal government i.e. President Donald Trump.
Zohran Mamdani
This is the total budget of New York
By the way, New York has fixed its budget of 115.9 billion dollars for the year 2026. The maximum share in this will be recovered through property registration, tax and other means. Out of this, most of the expenditure will be on public transport system, education and cleanliness. If Mamdani will use this budget as much as possible to fulfill his promises, then obviously the budget of public transport, education, health and cleanliness will have to be cut. This may cause crisis to these systems.
It is estimated to cost this much
- An expenditure of about $6.3 billion every year has already been determined for the New York Police.
- Mamdani has promised to make child health care free. This could cost up to seven billion dollars.
- About 1 million people travel by bus in New York every day. Making it completely free would require an additional $800 million. If people increase their greed for free travel, then this expenditure can reach up to 900 million dollars.
- The biggest challenge will be to raise the money to be spent on two lakh free houses for the poor.
Donald Trump, Zoharan Mamdani
No hope of help from Trump
In such a situation, Mamdani will have to find new sources of income for New York to fulfill his promises, because the city does not have enough budget to fulfill all these promises. Trump has already called Mamdani a crisis. Making fun of his speech, they said that whatever his name was, his speech was very angry. Apart from this, even during the election campaign, Trump had threatened that if Mamdani won the mayor’s election, he would stop New York’s budget from the federal government.
In such a situation, Mamdani should not expect New York to get additional budget for his promises. Mamdani’s only option to fulfill his promises is to increase taxes on the rich. However, the options for this are limited because the federal government collects most of the taxes. In such a situation, only time will tell how much and what kind of tax he is able to impose on the rich. Even if taxes are imposed, it is obvious that Mamdani will have to face the resentment of the rich.
Don’t meet the same fate as Kejriwal
Dr. Rajkumar Falwaria, professor of political science at Delhi University, said in a conversation with a newspaper that Mamdani has announced expenditure in the election campaign many times more than the entire budget of New York. With this, he has won the election on Kejriwal model. If he does not fulfill his promises, he may end up like Kejriwal. Presently America is going through a bad phase of inflation. It is becoming difficult for people to run their household. Due to the shutdown in America, millions of people are facing employment crisis. Therefore, Mamdani does not have much option to increase tax rates. If he is unable to fulfill his promises due to lack of budget, he will also become unpopular like Kejriwal.
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