PPRC report hails Delhi’s MCDs; ‘bundle of lies,’ says AAP

Quoting the report ‘Karmanishth Municipal Corporation of Delhi’, Delhi BJP claimed that it was able to provide improved urban governance despite the state government withholding funds meant for the civic bodies

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday engaged in a war of words over a report by the Public Policy Research Centre (PPRC) that appreciated the performance of the BJP-ruled municipal corporations in Delhi.

Union minister Meenakshi Lekhi said MCDs safai karamcharis worked round the clock during the Covid pandemic when people were confined to their houses during the lockdown. (HT)

Quoting the report ‘Karmanishth Municipal Corporation of Delhi’ - that came out two months ahead of the crucial MCD elections in Delhi - the Delhi BJP claimed that it was able to provide improved urban governance despite the state government withholding funds meant for the civic bodies. However, the AAP hit back rejecting the report as a testament of self-praise and a bundle of lies.

Releasing the report on Tuesday, Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, who is also the president of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), said that the MCDs have performed well, despite all odds in the last five years. “The BJP-ruled MCDs are the perfect example of development versus drumbeats. We believe in performance compared to AAP’s publicity. The efforts by the three MCDs towards improvement in the quality of public service must be appreciated,” he said.

Minister of state for external affairs Meenakshi Lekhi, who was present at release of the report, said MCDs safai karamcharis worked round the clock during the Covid-19 pandemic when people were confined to their houses during the lockdown. “They worked throughout lockdowns in an effort to ensure clean and hygienic surroundings throughout the pandemic. We extend our gratitude to them and acknowledge their support in our fight against the deadly pandemic,” she said.

The AAP said that the BJP hastily spun a web of lies to hide the rampant corruption and inefficiency of the party-ruled civic bodies in Delhi. Senior AAP leader and party’s MCD in-charge, Durgesh Pathak said, “The BJP leaders have no business than to accuse Delhi government over their failures. Today’s report card… is nothing more than the testament of self-praise. The residents of Delhi have been seeing the real report card of the BJP-ruled MCDs for the last 15 years. As they are afraid of losing the upcoming civic polls, they are now trying to befool the people of Delhi by manufacturing bundles of lies. The fear and agony of losing power in the MCDs has only been made apparent by the report,” he said.

Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta said the MCDs have been denied funds under development heads by the state government. “Despite such resource constraints, there has been no attempt at increasing the tax rates. In fact, the municipal corporations have undertaken an extensive effort to improve the voluntary tax compliance through various interventions to generate additional resources,” he said.

The Delhi government has maintained that it owes no funds to the civic bodies and in fact, extended a loan of nearly ₹7,000 crore to them.

(An earlier version of the news story had erroneously mentioned that the report was released by the ICCR. The error is deeply regretted.)