‘Politicising Gig Economy Will Kill…’: Amitabh Kant Labels AAP ‘Job Killer’, Makes Big Prediction – Delhi News Daily

Last Updated:January 03, 2026, 09:41 IST

Kant’s comments followed Chadha’s visit to a New Year’s Eve protest by delivery riders demanding better pay and working conditions.

The former NITI Aayog chief’s remarks came after AAP MP Raghav Chadha met delivery workers protesting working conditions in Delhi on New Year’s Eve. (IMAGE: X/@raghav_chadha)

The debate over India’s gig and quick-commerce economy escalated sharply after Amitabh Kant accused Aam Aadmi Party and its MP Raghav Chadha of being a “job killer” amid protests by delivery workers in Delhi and other cities.

In a series of posts on X, Kant defended platform-based work, arguing that India’s gig economy is “consumer-led” and one of the country’s biggest job-creation engines. He said gig jobs are projected to grow from 7.7 million to 23.5 million by 2030 and warned that politicising the sector would destroy livelihoods.

“Calling this ‘exploitation’ by folks who have not created a single job is political, not factual,” Kant wrote, directly tagging Chadha and the AAP.

He added that on December 31 alone, Zomato and Blinkit delivered over 75 lakh orders, driven by consumer demand for speed and convenience.

Kant also backed industry leaders, saying markets should be allowed to function while safety nets are strengthened, and accused critics of trying to sabotage innovation for political ends.

Chadha’s comments followed his visit to Old Rajinder Nagar in Delhi, where delivery riders from platforms such as Zomato, Swiggy and Blinkit held a symbolic protest on New Year’s Eve. Sharing photographs and posts from the gathering, the AAP MP said he spent the evening listening to workers and described their demands as legitimate.

“These platforms didn’t succeed because of algorithms alone. They succeeded because of human sweat and labour,” Chadha said, adding that gig workers should be treated as human beings, not “disposable data points”.

He argued that the gig economy should not become a “guilt-free exploitation economy” and called for fair pay, humane working conditions and social security.

The political exchange soon drew sharp reactions from the startup ecosystem. Info Edge founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani took a personal swipe at Chadha, questioning his credibility to speak on workers’ rights. In a post reposted by Deepinder Goyal, Bikhchandani dismissed Chadha as a “champagne socialist” and accused him of shedding “crocodile tears” over alleged exploitation.

Zomato and Blinkit founder Deepinder Goyal also weighed in, strongly defending the quick-commerce model and pushing back against claims that speed-based delivery puts riders at risk.

Goyal said Blinkit’s 10-minute delivery promise is enabled by dense store networks and system design, not by forcing riders to drive fast. He claimed delivery partners typically travel less than two kilometres in around eight minutes, at average speeds of about 15 kmph, and do not have countdown timers on their apps.

“One more thing. Our 10 minute delivery promise is enabled by the density of stores around your homes. It’s not enabled by asking delivery partners to drive fast. Delivery partners don’t even have a timer on their app to indicate what was the original time promised to the customer,” Goyal said in a post.

He added that many Indians voluntarily choose platform work and, in some cases, prefer it to traditional jobs. While acknowledging that no system is perfect, Goyal said the portrayal of gig work as inherently exploitative ignores how the model actually functions.

In a longer reflection, Goyal argued that the gig economy has made inequality visible by bringing workers and consumers face-to-face at an unprecedented scale. Over-regulating or dismantling the sector, he said, would not eliminate inequality but would instead push workers back into the informal economy, where protections are even weaker.

“The gig economy just exposed the reality of inequality to the people who previously had the luxury of not seeing it. The doorbell is not the problem. The question is what we do after opening the door,” Goyal said in a post earlier this week.

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