The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and MLA, Rakhi Birla on Saturday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is taking revenge for their loss in the Assembly elections by targeting the Dalit community and not paying salaries to the sanitation workers deployed in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
Addressing a press conference, Birla said that time and again BJP has showcased its anti-dalit mindset and has been torturing the people from Valmiki Samaj.
“The day is not far when these workers will remove BJP from MCD. The AAP is standing with the Dalit community in these difficult times and it will keep on helping them, by not letting the kind of mental, physical, and social torture that BJP is doing with the community continue further,” she said.
“AAP demands Rs. 200 crore remaining from Income Tax and Rs. 1200 crore from Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to be recovered this amount as soon as possible and our sanitation workers to be paid,” she added.
The MLA Kuldeep Kumar said that the BJP-ruled MCD, which has been in the power of the MCD for the last 15 years has only been harassing the employees.
“Despite working consecutively for four months, sanitation workers have not received their salary. During the 2017 MCD elections, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari had promised salaries to MCD employees from the central government. Today, these workers are suffering and Manoj Tiwari is sitting in his AC room and watching,” said Kumar.
“BJP leaders have money to pay their contractors but they do not money to pay these sanitation workers. They have money to run their plush offices but do not have money to pay a sanitation worker. These sanitation workers without thinking about their own well-being ensured that even during the COVID-19 pandemic the city was neat and clean but today they are left helpless,” said Birla.
“The condition was worsened to this level that they are not even able to borrow any ration. People tell them on their face that people working in MCDs do not have a clue of when they will receive their salaries. This is extremely painful for us to see,” said Birla.
“The day is not far when these workers will remove BJP from MCD. MCD is repeatedly saying that we do not have enough funds while their own commissioner is saying that Rs 1200 crore is yet to be recovered from DDA, a central government body. If DDA pays MCD this amount then my sanitation workers would be able to receive their salaries without any hassle,” said Rakhi Birla.
North MCD opposition leader Vikas Goel said that these sanitation workers wrote to the mayor and the commissioner on December 20 in which they have stated that they will go on strike from January 7 but still, BJP did not pay them.
“When on January 7, these workers went on strike then the mayor released their salary for one month. Now you can understand that BJP has sufficient funds but intentionally they are not paying these workers,” said Goel.