The Delhi Congress on Tuesday accused the BJP of ‘betraying and misleading’ over 50 lakh people living in unauthorised colonies of the Capital with an eye on securing a mandate in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections.
Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh questioned the changes in the guidelines framed for the regularisation of unauthorised colonies announced by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday and said it was imperative to probe ‘who would benefit from this decision’.
“The Congress had not only regularised 895 unauthorised colonies, but had also issued gazette notification regarding this decision. During the Congress rule, Rs. 1200 crore had been spent for the development of unauthorised colonies ranging from funds meant for work on laying sewers in addition to laying drinking and water pipe lines and concrete roads,” Mr. Singh said.
Party leaders also alleged that during the past 11 months, all development works in these colonies had come to a halt, for which the BJP and the 49-day old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government were responsible.
The Congress leaders also alleged that none of the BJP and AAP MLAs had spent a rupee from their MLA funds for development of these colonies.
“Whenever, the BJP came to power at the Centre and in Delhi, there was no instance of a single unauthorised colony getting regularized. Initially, 612 unauthorised colonies were regularised in the Capital in 1976-77 when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, and after that, 895 colonies were regularised by the Congress Government in Delhi,” Mr. Singh said.
“The truth is that despite the BJP being in-charge of the three MCDs, the layout plans of just five colonies have been made during the past 18 months. Without lay-out plans, the building plans of those living in these colonies are not getting approved. As a result, banks are not giving them loans and residents of these colonies are forced to bribe the police and the MCD officials for the slightest of services which happen to be their right,” Mr. Singh added.
