Delhi Congress is going to hit the streets on Monday in protest against the non-payment of salaries to the BJP-run three municipal bodies in the national Capital. A large number of the party supporters will be holding protests in all the municipal zones from 9 am to 12 noon. To make the protests a huge success, the Delhi unit of the party has been convening a series of meetings with its local leaders. On Friday, Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken held a meeting with the leaders of the North-East, Chandni Chowk and East Delhi Parliamentary constituencies. Prominent leaders who attended the meetings included former MP JP Aggarwal, former city Minister Narender Nath and former MlAs Talwinder Singh Marwah, Prahlad Singh Sawhney and Mateen Ahmed. Former MP Sandeep Dikshit, former city Ministers AK Walia and Haroon Yusuf and former MlA Hasan Ahmed were conspicuous by their absence.
Maken said his party would soon come out with a “chargesheet” on the functioning of the municipal bodies. He said the party’s main demand was that the municipal bodies should immediately release the salaries of its employees and pensions to widows and differently-abled in the city. He said pensions to about two lakh people have not been paid by the municipal bodies for a long time. The Congress leader claimed that the Delhi Government had released Rs3,128 crore to corporations in 2012-13.
He criticised Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for reducing the city’s budget by Rs651 crore. He also criticised city’s Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia for further trimming Delhi’s budget by Rs62 crore. He said he was surprised at the way Sisodia had reduced Rs2,000 crore in the planned budget during his recent vote-on-account. He claimed that both the BJP and the AAP were responsible for the financial mess of the municipal bodies.
launching a scathing attack on the municipal bodies for not meeting the parameters set by the Centre in allocating work to safai karamcharis, Maken said one such employee was required to look after 30,000 square feet area. “But the municipal bodies have kept one safai karamchari for 1.25 lakh square feet area.” He demanded that all the safai karamcharis should be regularised on priority so that the city does not suffer further.