Civil society group National Alliance of People’s Movement (NAPM) has also come out in support of Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal in his indefinite fast against “inflated” power bills. Mr Kejriwal’s protest entered its 11th day on Tuesday.
Backing Mr. Kejriwal’s allegations of “collusion between authorities in government, discoms and regulator resulting in corrupt practices and arbitrarily high tariffs for the consumer”, the NAPM has seconded his demand for an audit of power and electricity supply in Delhi by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
The NAPM letter of endorsement, released by the AAP on Tuesday, said: “Aam Aadmi Party has provided ample documentary evidence to substantiate this case, and has clearly maintained how distributing companies have inflated their costs by procuring equipment at higher prices. The cause for such inflated bills is on account of complicit corrupt practices due to the nexus between private corporations and government, to which the public at large is succumbing.”
Meanwhile, the AAP spokesperson claimed that over 8.3 lakh signatures have been received from the citizens in support of the “civil disobedience movement” against the alleged nexus of discoms and the Delhi Government. People have affixed their signatures on letters that urge the discoms to bring into the public domain all their collections. “If there is no fudging in the accounts, then why are they afraid of getting them audited by CAG?” asked the AAP spokesperson.
The spokesperson said Mr. Kejriwal’s health was stable and doctors were monitoring his basic parameters. “His blood pressure is 108/71, pulse 67, sugar 123 and ketone is 3+,” she said, adding that due to general weakness Mr. Kejriwal did not address his supporters at the Sunder Nagari protest site on Tuesday.
