At least 200 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers, led by senior party leader Vijay Goel, on Thursday staged a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the city, alleging that chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has “betrayed” the people of Delhi on the issue of regularising unauthorised colonies.
The AAP dismissed the allegations and questioned the BJP on what it has done so far for the welfare of the 1,797 unauthorised colonies in the city.
“Kejriwal is misleading the people of Delhi on regularisation (of illegal colonies) as the onus was on the Delhi government to demarcate the boundaries of unauthorised colonies, which it failed to finish in the past four-and-a-half years and is now seeking more time till 2021. Today, the same chief minister is saying he would not tolerate a minute’s delay in regularization of the colonies,” Goel said.
On Wednesday, Kejriwal had said that Delhi government has agreed to all conditions of the Centre on the process of granting ownership rights to residents in unauthorised colonies. Elaborating on the broad road map of the project, he said that his government has sent a list of 12 suggestions to the Centre. Earlier this month, the Centre had shared a copy of a draft cabinet note on unauthorised colonies with stakeholders, including the Delhi government.
Senior AAP leader and Delhi minister Gopal Rai said, “The BJP was in power in Delhi assembly for five years (between 1993 and 1998) and it has also been in power at the Centre for the last five years. What have they done on the subject of unauthorised colonies? The AAP government had approved a proposal for their regularisation in 2015 and sent it to the Centre. In four years, we have spent around ₹6,000 crore on the development of these colonies.”
BJP members of the parliament Hand Raj Hans and Parvesh Verma also joined in the protest.
