AAP holds protest against alleged corruption in BJP-ruled municipal corporations

"The Bharatiya Janata Party-led MCDs have failed in the sectors of education because they could not provide books to the students, in the health sector because they could not give salary to the doctors and they have also failed in cleaning the city," he alleged. He claimed that the citizens of Delhi will defeat the BJP and remove it from power in the municipal corporations of the city, and that if the AAP comes to power it will run the MCDs within the same budget and make a "cleanliness model" of Delhi on the lines of its education and health models.

Members of the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday held protests across all 70 assembly constituencies of Delhi against the alleged corruption in the BJP-ruled municipal corporations. In a statement, the party said as part of this protest, all MLAs, councilors and workers of the AAP held protests in every constituency and highlighted the BJP's alleged failures in running the civic bodies in the last 15 years.

"It is very unfortunate that Delhi, which is the capital of the country was found to be the dirtiest city due to BJP's corruption," AAP senior leader and the party's in-charge of municipal corporations Durgesh Pathak said. "Tourists from different countries of the world come to Delhi, the prime minister of this country Narendra Modi lives in Delhi, all the Cabinet ministers of the central government and all the MPs live in Delhi. But the reluctance and the corruption of the BJP-led MCDs have made Delhi the dirtiest city," he said.

Pathak was referring to the recently announced 'Swachh Survekshan' 2020 awards that are given on the basis of cleanliness. The SDMC was ranked 31st, North MCD ranked 43rd and EDMC 46th in the rankings. "The Bharatiya Janata Party-led MCDs have failed in the sectors of education because they could not provide books to the students, in the health sector because they could not give salary to the doctors and they have also failed in cleaning the city," he alleged.

He claimed that the citizens of Delhi will defeat the BJP and remove it from power in the municipal corporations of the city, and that if the AAP comes to power it will run the MCDs within the same budget and make a "cleanliness model" of Delhi on the lines of its education and health models. AAP's Leader of Opposition Manoj Tyagi from East Delhi Municipal Corporation led the protest outside the EDMC office in Patparganj.

"BJP-ruled municipal corporations are only interested in corruption. The leaders of BJP sit there and work only to do corruption. These people are engaged in the privatization of some other unit of the corporation," he alleged. If AAP gets the responsibility of the MCD, then it will run it efficiently in the same budget, he added.

Delhi BJP Spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor has said Delhi is "fed up" with the "frivolous" statements of Durgesh Pathak of Aam Aadmi Party. "For last two days he has been churning out same point of combined budget of Rs. 18,000 crores for three MCDs. It seems either Durgesh Pathak has no factual knowledge or he feigns ignorance to create confusion," he said. "The truth is that the three MCDs have a combined budget of Rs 18,000 crores but their actual available funds are hardly Rs 12,000 crores, that too coming in installments and sufficient only to meet 75 percent of MCDs Salary, maintenance and community services bills", Kapoor claimed. On the AAP's claims on lack of cleanliness in Delhi, he said the BJP "fails to understand the basis of the survey" and claimed that the people of Delhi are proud of their municipal sanitation workers who have kept Delhi clean and safe during the last six months of the COVID-19 crisis.

"By repeatedly saying that the city is filthy Aam Aadmi Party is insulting the hard work of our city's sanitation workers who have risked their lives to give us a clean environment," Kapoor added.