Fear of losing elections forced BJP to bring MCD merger plan: AAP

AAP’s Delhi state convener and cabinet minister Gopal Rai said the party will announce its plan of action against the BJP once the details of the Bill for MCD unification become public

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying its move to unify the three municipal corporations in Delhi was merely an excuse to delay the elections to the civic bodies, even as it challenged the BJP to announce the poll schedule immediately.

Senior AAP leader and Kalkaji MLA Atishi said the BJP, despite being the largest political party, is “running away” from an election as “small as the Delhi MCD polls”. (Amal KS/HT Photo)

AAP’s Delhi state convener and cabinet minister Gopal Rai said the party will announce its plan of action against the BJP once the details of the Bill for MCD unification become public.

The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to merge the three MCDs with officials saying the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, is likely to be tabled in Parliament next week.

Senior AAP leader and Kalkaji MLA Atishi said the BJP, despite being the largest political party, is “running away” from an election as “small as the Delhi MCD polls”. She said the BJP was afraid of facing Arvind Kejriwal in elections.

Questioning the timing of the move, Atishi said, “The BJP is in power for the last 15 years in MCDs, and for seven years at the Centre, why did they think of unification (of MCDs) only after the exit poll results for the Punjab assembly elections were released?”

“Elections were postponed only once in the history of the country when Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency out of her fear to face the elections. The BJP is doing the same today,” she added.

She also slammed the BJP for doing nothing to reform the MCD administration. “The BJP could only think about the unification only when the term of the three MCDs was coming to an end. The BJP has seen the tenures of both the unified MCD and its trifurcated divisions. Today, it has been over seven years since BJP came to power in the Centre, yet it was so blindsided by its wicked intentions that it never expressed a desire to unify the corporation. They (BJP) realised they stood no chance in front of the AAP’s wave,” she said.

AAP chief spokesperson and MLASaurabh Bhardwaj said with the municipal corporation elections on the horizon, this exercise is being carried out solely to delay the elections. “They had done a similar thing in 2014, when they postponed the Delhi assembly elections for a year, from February 2014 to February 2015, for the fear of a defeat. Finally, due to the intervention of the Supreme Court, the central government was forced to hold elections. The Election Commission, which was under the Central government’s influence, had no choice but to conduct these elections, and the people of Delhi gave the AAP 66 of the 70 seats,” he said.

AAP MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said the elections and unification of MCDs have nothing to do with one another. “The unification can be done at any time but the BJP is using the unification as a ploy to avoid holding MCD elections in Delhi. The BJP has been in power in the MCDs for 15 years, and during its rule hardly a single street in Delhi has been cleaned. There are three garbage mountains in Delhi. The BJP squandered so much money on corruption that they are unable to pay their employees’ salaries today. The people of Delhi are hoping for a significant change inside the MCDs,” he said.

Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta refuted the allegations. “This (unification) is only going to strengthen the civic body and the unified corporation will be able to provide better services to people. We welcome the decision. The Delhi government has made the corporations financially weak by not giving funds in the past seven years. With this decision, 2.5 lakh employees will be able to get salaries on time,” he said.