Happy BJP kept its promise on unauthorised colonies: PM

Without naming the AAP and the Congress, the Prime Minister said that the opposition parties have only made false promises during elections in the past to residents of unauthorised colonies.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) political rivals in Delhi for depriving residents of unauthorised colonies of their rights for years, as he launched his party’s campaign for the upcoming assembly elections at the Ramlila Maidan on Sunday.

PM Modi said the Centre took over the process to confer ownership rights to four million residents of unauthorised colonies due to inordinate delay by the state government.(B Kinu/HT Photos)

While listing out the work done by the Centre for the welfare of Delhi, the PM hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led state government for stalling development works and not addressing the “biggest issue” of the quality of piped water.

Addressing thousands of party workers, PM Modi said the Centre took over the process to confer ownership rights to four million residents of unauthorised colonies due to inordinate delay by the state government.

Without naming the AAP and the Congress, the Prime Minister said that the opposition parties have only made false promises during elections in the past to residents of unauthorised colonies. With the Centre starting the process to confer ownership rights, the PM said that in the past, only the cut-off dates for the regularisation of these colonies were extended during previous elections.

“So many years after independence, a huge population of Delhi has lived in fear and uncertainty related to their home. Illegal, unauthorised, JJ clusters and cut-off date — life of people was confined to these words. The cut-off dates were extended every time before elections and the bulldozers would stop. But the problem remained… Those who have deprived you of your rights for so long should come here to see how people feel when they get ownership rights of their properties,” he said to the crowd at the ground on Sunday afternoon.

The mega rally was organised by the party’s Delhi unit to thank the Prime Minister for the Centre’s decision to give ownership rights to residents of 1,731 unauthorised colonies in Delhi. The party collected 1.1 million signatures of unauthorised colonies’ residents, which were presented to the PM. Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Goel, who was incharge of the rally, said close to 200,000 people attended it.

“They (Delhi government) said that boundaries of these colonies will be fixed by 2021. This is why we took over in March this year and in November we passed the bill in this regard… I’m happy that I and the BJP have got a the opportunity to bring a new dawn in the lives of over 40 lakh people of Delhi,” he said amid loud cheers by supporters shouting ‘Modi hai to mumkin hai’.

The party is trying to garner support from unauthorised colonies, which are considered the AAP’s stronghold and had played a crucial role in its success in the 2015 assembly elections.

Modi told the residents of unauthorised colonies that people whom they had trusted to solve the problem “had illegally given 2,000 lavish bungalows to their people. No one knows what was given to whom in lieu of that. I have removed their VIPs and made you the VIP,” he said.

Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said: “People are very happy with the Centre’s decision to confer ownership rights. They want to thank the PM for taking measures to expedite the process which has been pending for a long time.”

The event was attended by Union ministers Prakash Javdekar, Hardeep Singh Puri, all seven BJP MPs from Delhi and several other senior leaders.

While a large part of his 98-minute-long speech was dedicated to the issue of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the violent protests against it in the country, he attacked the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi on the issue of development.

He also said that the state government has not implemented the Centre’s citizen-centric schemes such as Ayushman Bharat and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

Training his guns at the Delhi government, the Prime Minister raised the issue of quality of piped drinking water, which became a flashpoint between the state government and the Centre following a report by the Bureau of Indian Standards.

“BIGGEST CONCERN: QUALITY OF WATER”

He asked the crowd, whether they get clean drinking water at their homes. “The present state government has turned a blind eye on the biggest issue in Delhi which is of quality of drinking water. Maximum water purifiers are sold in Delhi. Those who can’t afford it have to buy bottled water. But those who can’t even afford that are forced to drink unclean water. But they (state government) say that there is no problem,” he said.

“Kya aap jhoothe hain? (Are you lying?)” he asked the crowd.

Listing the achievements of his government, the PM said they have taken up all the projects such as construction of peripheral expressways, ownership rights to unauthorised colonies, Delhi Metro expansion among others, which were stuck for a long time. “If the state government had not done politics and given the clearance, the work of Metro Phase-IV would have started long back…Those who do politics in your name don’t understand your problems,” he said.

While AAP MP Sanjay Singh criticised the PM over his remarks made about the citizenship issue at Sunday’s rally, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said all CMs should be called for a meet on issues of unemployment and the economy.