AAP to join MCD workers’ protest demanding salaries, BJP hits back

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday said its councillors would join a protest staged by employees of the three municipal corporations (MCDs) at the Civic Centre on Monday to demand payment of their pending salaries.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday said its councillors would join a protest staged by employees of the three municipal corporations (MCDs) at the Civic Centre on Monday to demand payment of their pending salaries.

Senior AAP leader and the party’s MCD in-charge, Durgesh Pathak. (File photo)

Addressing a press conference, senior AAP leader and the party’s MCD in-charge, Durgesh Pathak, said AAP would like to “give some suggestions” to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including training their leaders on how to reduce corruption and increase the budget of the municipal corporations.

The three civic bodies in Delhi -- north, south and the east -- are run by the BJP.

“If the BJP wants, AAP can train their officials and councillors on how civic work can be carried out honestly and developmental works can be improved. We want to help the BJP in making the MCDs self-reliant,” Pathak said.

Pathak said when the Arvind Kejriwal government was formed in 2015, Delhi’s budget was around Rs 28,000 crore. “The Delhi government’s budget has doubled and is now Rs 60,000 crore. This happened without putting any extra tax burden on citizens. In MCD, the budget was Rs 10,000 crore in 2015 and now it is just Rs 11,340 crore. Which means in the last five years, the BJP has increased its budget by just Rs 1,340 crore,” he said.

The BJP denied AAP’s allegations and said the Kejriwal-led party was making these baseless claims to garner support from the people of Delhi ahead of the municipal elections, scheduled sometime in April, 2022.

In the last elections on April 23, 2017, the BJP won a majority in all the three civic bodies -- north, south and east.

“The AAP should know that worldwide, no municipal body is financially self-sufficient. The AAP leaders should know that in a combined meagre budget of Rs 18,000 crore, the MCDs employ around one lakh staff, providing Delhi basic sanitation, health and school services, while their Delhi government, which boasts of a Rs 60,000 crore budget, employs hardly 25,000 staff,” Kapoor said.