NEW DELHI: The BJP in Delhi on Tuesday demanded immediate allotment of 52,000 vacant flats of the economically weaker section (EWS) category to slum dwellers, living in jhuggis along the railway tracks, who are likely to be displaced following a recent Supreme Court order.

Urging the Delhi government to make allotment, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Kumar Gupta and Leader of Opposition in the assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri further asked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to relocate slum dwellers in vacant housing units. Gupta said that Delhi BJP stands with the slum dwellers and will not allow any injustice with them. “The Congress, which had ruled Delhi for 15 years, and now the AAP, for the last 6 years, have used the slum dwellers as a vote bank and betrayed them.

The Congress government had started the Rajiv Ratna Awas Yojana in 2008, under which 60 thousand houses were to be given to slum-dwellers, but that did not happen,” said Gupta. Bidhuri said that Kejriwal and AAP had made promises to slum dwellers but did nothing. Delhi BJP’s media cell head Ashok Goel Devraha was present at the press conference.

The Supreme Court has recently ordered the removal of about 30,000 slum clusters along railway tracks in Delhi within three months. The court has also said that no political interference should be made in implementation of its order. About 2.77 lakh applications were submitted by people living in slums and they had paid `100 for each application but the Congress did not fulfil its promise, said Gupta. He said that the BJP-ruled Central government is committed to providing housing to each slum dweller under ‘Jahan Jhuggi Wahin Makan’ scheme.