With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) keen to repeat its Assembly election performance in the upcoming Delhi civic body polls, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal reached out to the public through a video message. He accused the Congress and the BJP of having looted the municipal corporation and leaving the city in a mess.
In the message that was publicised through YouTube and also through the social media, Kejriwal said many people had the misconception that cleaning the city was the work of the Delhi government. “That is not the job of the Delhi government. It is the work of the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi),” he said, adding that the three corporations had left Delhi in a mess, and it was embarrassing to call the city the capital of the country.
“For the last 20 years, Congress and the BJP have ruled the MCD. Both have looted the MCD. Last year, Delhi government gave them Rs 28,000 crore,” Kejriwal said, accusing the Congress and the BJP of having indulged in corruption while running the corporations.
“Mention one thing that is done in the MCD without bribery—be it getting a birth certificate or maps of houses cleared. They are such bad people that if someone dies, you have to bribe them for the death certificate,” he said.
Highlighting the work done by his government, Kejriwal said electricity in Delhi was the cheapest in the country, and old water bills had been waived off. He said the quality of education in government schools had increased tremendously. Mohalla clinics, he said, was a big healthcare reform.
The message was accompanied by a short film that carried testimonials of Delhiites on issues ranging from school education to healthcare to compensation given to farmers.
“No BJP or Congress government since independence has done so much work in its first two years,”Kejriwal said.
The three municipal corporations in Delhi, all of them run by the BJP presently, will go to polls in April. The elections will be a test of the popularity of the AAP, which had come to power in Delhi with a whopping majority of 67 out of 70 seats. The AAP slogan for the MCD polls is 'MCD Chunav Mein Jhadu Chalao, Dilli Se Gandagi Bhagao', which plays on the party's election symbol—the broom.
