Kejriwal meets Delhi RWAs in push for ‘mini-councillor’ plan

The Delhi chief minister vowed to grant financial and political powers to RWAs, including paying them special funds for festivals and deploying civil defence volunteers for security purposes.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), if voted to the municipal corporation in the December 4 elections, will give resident welfare associations (RWAs) across the city the status of “mini councillors”.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal meets members of RWAs at Panchshila Club in New Delhi on Thursday. (PTI)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hit back, accusing Kejriwal, the AAP national convenor, of “tricking” the RWAs and people of voting for them.

Speaking at a meeting of RWA representatives at south Delhi’s Panchshila Club, Kejriwal said the move will be part of the party’s manifesto for the civic body polls -- campaigning for which will end on Friday evening -- to enable every citizen of the Capital to partake in the administration of their area, and take decisions for basic issues at the ground level.

“A ward is a large area and it has several RWAs, so the idea is to have the RWA act like the ‘mini-councillor’ of its area. A person who is elected as the councillor will then be in charge of taking all the RWAs along. We want the RWA to act like the ‘councillor’ of its limited area and the decisions are taken by them along with the people of the area,” Kejriwal said.

The CM also vowed to grant financial and political powers to the RWAs, including paying them special funds for festivals and deploying civil defence volunteers for security purposes.

“We want to create a system by which a basic minimum amount of funds can be given to the RWAs. This will enable all the small work to happen at the local level,” he said.

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of impeding works undertaken by the AAP government in Delhi, Kejriwal said, “We had tried to organise Delhi into 3,500 mohalla sabhas, but the BJP-run MCD did not cooperate and the whole scheme got obstructed. Now we will actively involve RWAs in this. If we succeed in creating a model of direct public participation for governance in Delhi, it will give a new system of governance to the whole world.”

Several RWA representatives reacted positively to Kejriwal’s proposals.

Mayur Vihar Phase II Pocket E’s RWA president Devendra Jutla said the associations getting the status of “mini councillor” would be a “huge relief for the RWAs”. Shobhana Khanna, the RWA representative from Kalkaji Extension Block-8, said that the people of Delhi will be grateful if “you empower the RWAs such that we can do mosquito fumigation ourselves”. Rajeev Kakaria, representative of the Greater Kailash 1 E-Block RWA called for the recognition of only one RWA from each area.

However, some RWAs expressed disappointment on not being invited to the event. “The empowerment of RWAs is a crucial issue and we intended to discuss it with the CM. Unfortunately, we got no invite for the RWAs’ meet today. The CM must treat all RWAs at par, and representation must be given to all zones,” said BS Vohra, president of the federation of east Delhi RWAs.

Meanwhile, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said Kejriwal’s promise to the RWAs was designed to “trick” the people to vote for the AAP. “Kejriwal did nothing in the last seven years to empower the RWAs, to give them funds, or to involve them in the decentralisation of power or in decision-making. Why has Kejriwal remembered RWAs only during the MCD polls? The RWAs should be careful about Kejriwal’s fake promises and vote only for the BJP,” he said.