The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday slammed the Delhi government’s conclave on cooperative federalism. The party said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal should rather focus on strengthening relations between the State and the local bodies.
Questioning the ‘lack of interest’ of Mr. Kejriwal in the report of the Fourth Finance Commission, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Vijender Gupta said, “The CM regretted at the conclave that the Centre is collecting taxes, but not distributing it to States. He has persistently refused to place the report of the Fourth Finance Commission in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha. Though there is no law, which requires the nod of the Central government for its implementation, Mr. Kejriwal has decided to seek the same.” “The local bodies are starving of funds to the extent that even today the safai karamcharies held demonstrations because they have not received the salary for the last three months. Why is the champion of cooperative federalism not listening to nearly 1.5 lakh employees of the North, South, and East Delhi Municipal Corporations and their two crore residents?” he questioned.
Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay said the conclave was ‘just a façade to use public money for self-glorification’.
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