At the protest on TuesdayAAP held protests against the BJP-led MCDs in all 70 assembly constituencies on Tuesday, accusing it of corruption and attacking it over its low ranking in the Swachh Survekshan (cleanliness survey) carried out by the Centre.
AAP’s MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said corruption was the reason behind the corporations’ performance: “It is very unfortunate that Delhi, which is the capital of the country, was found to be the dirtiest city due to BJP’s corruption. The rankings of areas under the BJP-ruled MCDs are very poor as per the survey. SDMC was ranked 31, North MCD at 43 and EDMC at 46. One of the key responsibilities of the MCDs is cleaning the city but the survey clearly shows they have miserably failed… MCDs also failed in sectors of education because they could not provide books to students, in health as they could not give salaries to doctors, and they also failed in cleaning the city. We will run MCDs within the same budget and make a cleanliness model of Delhi, just like the education and health model, if we come to power.” The MCD election is in 2022.
BJP battled 10 years of anti-incumbency and won its third term in the MCDs in 2017. AAP has of late switched gears keeping the 2022 polls in mind.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor, meanwhile, said it was correct they had failed to get a good ranking in the survey but they failed to understand what its basis was. “The people of Delhi are proud of their municipal sanitation workers who have kept Delhi clean and safe during last six months of the Covid-19 crisis,” he said.
He also hit out at Pathak, saying he either had no knowledge of the MCDs’ finances or was feigning ignorance: “The truth is that three corporations have a combined budget of Rs 18,000 crore but their actual available funds are hardly Rs 12,000 crore, which come in installments and are sufficient only to meet 75% of costs of salaries, maintenance and community service bills.”