Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva on Friday alleged that senior AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj, for personal gain, issued an order on July 21, 2023, while serving as the Water Minister, mandating that no officer could issue a single rupee work order without his personal approval and held him responsible for waterlogging in the city.
Virendra claimed, “The primary reason for the waterlogging problem which Delhi is currently facing is the corruption of the Delhi government's erstwhile Water ministers, Saurabh Bhardwaj and Satyendar Jain, and their desire to extract financial benefits from every departmental work.”
He accused Delhi Water Minister Atishi for blaming everyone, from the Lieutenant Governor to the Chief Secretary and the Water Board's executive engineers, of not doing work at the behest of the BJP leaders instead of taking action. Sachdeva claimed that the Delhi BJP has been consistently exposing the failure of the Kejriwal government through protests over waterlogging. “Due to the mounting public pressure, Minister Atishi had to understand the situation by consulting with the officials. The Chief Secretary and Water Board officials explained to the Minister that on June 5, 2020, Satyendar Jain, and then on July 21, 2023, former Water Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj, issued orders that no official could issue a work order worth even 100 rupees without the approval of the departmental minister, i.e., the Water Board Chairman. This led to a complete breakdown in the maintenance services of the Water Board for the past one year,” he alleged.
He stated that Atishi had to annul their orders on Thursday after the Chief Secretary exposed the orders of Bhardwaj and Jain. “This clearly indicates that Minister Atishi, who annulled the orders of her predecessors, now knows that Saurabh Bhardwaj and Satyendar Jain's greed for corruption is responsible for the waterlogging disaster in Delhi and the nearly 35 deaths,” he added.
He demanded the resignation of Bhardwaj and said that he has no moral right to remain in office.
