NEW DELHI: The BJP has sharpened its attack on the Delhi government oversupply of water and electricity in the national capital, with a party delegation holding a dharna at the headquarters of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Tuesday.
Former Union minister Vijay Goel, BJP MLA OP Sharma and party general secretary Ravinder Gupta had gone to meet DJB CEO Nikhil Kumar in the evening, but they said they were locked outside by officials, preventing them from reaching the CEO’s room.
The delegation, accompanied by a large number of BJP workers, raised slogans against the Aam Aadmi Party government and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is the chairman of DJB. They alleged that the government had no plan to deal with a “water crisis” in the city.
Goel and the other BJP leaders argued with DJB officials over water supply in the city, with the delegation demanding an immediate solution to water woes in the national capital, saying they would not leave the office till the problems were resolved.
“They (DJB) have no clue as to how many complaints they have received. They don’t have any knowledge about the areas where people have been getting contaminated water or no water at all. I am seeing people crying for water, but I see no plan to resolve the crisis. We have gheraoed the CEO’s office. We will not let him leave tonight,” Goel said. Sharma alleged that the DJB staff had kept the protestors captive. “We had come here at 4.30 pm, but they locked the doors after we entered,” he said.
Rejecting the charge, DJB vice chairman Dinesh Mohaniya said the BJP was politicising the issue. Earlier in the day, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari accused the AAP government of being “vision-less”, following “reports” of water shortage and frequent power cuts from different parts of Delhi.
Tiwari has written a letter to CM Kejriwal drawing his attention to “power outages” and “acute water crisis” in the city. Speaking in a press conference, Tiwari said every house in the city will receive piped water in four years after the BJP comes to power in Delhi. He alleged that a tanker mafia was having a “field day” even as people were suffering water shortages and poor quality of water supply.
He claimed that there was a daily shortage of 230 MGD of water and around 37 lakh people were not getting water supply in the city.
Responding to Tiwari’s allegation and letter written to Kerjiwal, AAP’s national spokesperson Raghav Chadha said the letter was mala fide and factually incorrect. He challenged the BJP leader to an open debate on the matter.New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi also held a demonstration against water shortage, at the DJB Office in RK Puram.