The BJP’s Vision Document for Delhi on Tuesday spelt out specific promises for the capital’s voters. The document is being viewed in the light of ‘Kiran’s Blueprint’—a daily series of ideas that the party’s CM candidate Kiran Bedi has been tweeting since last week.
While Bedi’s tweets give broad guidelines and oft-repeated advice on how to deal with the capital’s problems, the Vision Document—steered by Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan describes actual steps that the government would take.
For example, while Bedi talks about starting a Women’s Security Force, the Vision Document explains that the proposed Force would function under the CM’s Office and work in tandem with the Delhi Police—which reports to the Lieutenant Governor. It also says that the Force would be deployed in crowded areas. Bedi mentions fast track courts, while the Vision Document also lists the creation of a Justice Commission to find ways for early disposal of pending cases, filling up of judicial vacancies and setting up a Court Modernization Fund.
Bedi has drawn praise on social media for prioritising a Safe and Healthy Nightlife, Distribution of Pepper Spray to women and publicising convictions. Bedi has taken a leaf out of PM Narendra Modi’s book by dwelling on sanitation. She plans to involve Residents Welfare Associations and the private sector in keeping the city clean.
The vision document also mentions the expansion of public toilets, but restricts it to a single para in the booklet as the party also controls the three municipal corporations for whom sanitation and conservancy are the primary task is. In the single para on public conveniences the Vision Document sticks top policy measures such as protecting the rights of contractual sanitation staff and prioritising allocation of toilets to poorer neighbourhoods.
Bedi promises to allow unused spaces for start-ups—in both her ‘Youth Engagement and “Economy” blue prints and better lighting in market places. The Vision Document offers loans for women entrepreneurs, mutation of industrial plots to leasehold to freehold, distress redressal centres in industrial areas. Both the blueprint and the vision promise to cut red tape.
The Congress criticised the vision document which refers to Delhi-residents from the Northeast as “migrants.” The document promises special cells in all police stations and a 24-hour helpline in the light of attacks North Easterners. Chhat Puja ghats, to attract Bihar-origin voters, have also been promised.
