Kejriwal govt will give railway slum residents home if Centre doesn’t: Raghav Chadha

Addressing a press conference on Friday, AAP national spokesperson Raghav Chadha said the Delhi government has written to the Northern Railway, arguing that any demolition without rehabilitating residents would be “unconstitutional” and “illegal”.

New Delhi: Continuing its attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the eviction of residents of slums along Delhi’s railway tracks, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday said chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s government will provide homes to the displaced if the Centre fails to do so.

AAP leader Raghav Chadha (PTI)

Addressing a press conference on Friday, AAP national spokesperson Raghav Chadha said the Delhi government has written to the Northern Railway, arguing that any demolition without rehabilitating residents would be “unconstitutional” and “illegal”.

Chadha’s comments came a day after he tore eviction notices sent to the residents by the railways and said no one could raze their shanties “till Kejriwal is alive”.

In Friday’s press briefing, Chadha presented an affidavit and an action-taken report submitted by the Northern Railways to the Supreme Court (SC) which stated that the mushrooming of slums along railway tracks is acting as a hindrance towards keeping them clean.

“In its affidavit to the SC, the BJP government has noted that due to the slums and its dwellers, the railway tracks remain dirty, and therefore, the slums should be demolished. This is irrefutable evidence, which exposes the BJP’s anti-poor agenda,” he said.

“The apex court was hearing a matter regarding the garbage-cleaning issue in Delhi. The Central government silently submitted this affidavit on August 18, in which it observed that people who stay in slums along the railway lines are the reason behind the filth on and around the tracks. This is why the BJP wants to demolish these slums,” Chadha said.

The Northern Railway’s document mentions that it has been unable to evict the residents despite having a special task force ready sending numerous notices for encroachment removal due to various political interferences.

The document, which HT has seen, reads, “There are circumstances prevailing upon Railways due to mushrooming of JJ clusters in the land adjoining railway land specially in and around Delhi areas and quite often goes beyond the control of the Railway authority, mainly due to the hindrance created by the local public representatives and sometimes due to stay orders passed by various courts in removal of unauthorised encroachment from the railway land to the unauthorised JJ cluster which have become the continuous source of MSW (municipal solid waste) where these encroachers burn garbage, MSW…” read the document submitted to the Apex Court by the Railways.

Chadha, who is also the vice-chairperson of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), said the AAP takes these admissions by the Railways “as a matter of pride”.

“This affidavit proves that Kejriwal is not only the chief minister of Delhi, but also the elder son to the families of the slum dwellers. Kejriwal will take up every responsibility of the elder son and will not allow any eviction unless the BJP-ruled Centre comes up with a proper rehabilitation plan. The ongoing case in the apex court is not even about slum demolition, but the BJP filed the affidavit in a bid to get a court order so they can demolish the slums as they were unable to do so earlier because of the Arvind Kejriwal government,” he said.

AAP also talked about the letter sent by the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) to the Northern Railways requesting it not to carry out any demolition without rehabilitating the slum dwellers.

Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta on Friday alleged that despite being in power for over five years, the ruling party has done little to rehabilitate people living in slums in the Capital.

“This is an ultimatum for the Delhi government that if they do not shift the slum dwellers in the 52,000 houses lying vacant within the next 90 days, then we will shift the slum dwellers in those vacant houses,” Gupta said.

Repeated calls and text messages to the spokesperson of the Northern Railway for a comment went unanswered.