Politicians are magicians. Don’t snigger. It’s true. They are determined to turn Delhi into either London or Paris, minus of course the swish of the cape and the wave of the magic wand.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday vowed to turnaround the civic amenities in the national capital and make it "comparable to London within just one year if AAP wins the municipal polls".

He is definitely not the first politician keen to transform the city and compare it to another world-class city.

His predecessor Sheila Dikshit too wanted to turn Delhi into Paris.

Just a thought – how many of Delhi’s over 18 million people would have visited either London or Paris to know exactly what it means.

Anyway, BJP leader Vijay Goyal, now a union minister, said in February 2013 that in the last 14 years, Sheila Dikshit has failed to keep her promise of turning Delhi into Paris; in fact, it has turned into a slum.

A decade before him, BJP leader Jagmohan had, however, expressed his wish to see Delhi into Paris.

In May 2004, disability activist Javed Abidi, who filed his nomination as an independent candidate from the New Delhi parliamentary constituency, had said: “How can the former tourism minister make statements that he would turn Delhi into Paris when even after being elected from this constituency three times he couldn’t do anything.”

In March 2014, when Narendra Modi was yet to become the prime minister, had made a comparison, but that had made sense.

Modi said at a rally in Baghpat: “Look at the stretch from Meerut to Haridwar. Have they (the UPA) ever thought about developing it? Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Meerut and Gautam Buddh Nagar have the potential to be developed as satellite towns of Delhi. If New York can have New Jersey, then why can’t this happen? Instead of living in Delhi, people will choose to live here.”

Sometimes comparisons can be good. For instance, turning Bengaluru and Gurugram into the Silicon Valley.

But, some aren’t.

Former chief minister Lalu Prasad famously promising to make the roads in Bihar as smooth as Hema Malini's cheeks.