NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to hold its Diwali celebrations in the city’s unauthorised colonies and all senior leaders and cadres will be a part of them.
The move is being seen as a ploy to convince the dwellers of these colonies that it was the central government which strove for regularisation of the settlements. On Wednesday, the Centre announced that it had decided to grant ownership status to an estimated 40 lakh residents spread across 1,797 unauthorised colonies in the national capital.
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“Our leaders and workers will share the joy with the people of unauthorised colonies by ringing in Deepawali with them. While we will be with the 40 lakh residents of unauthorised colonies, Kejriwal will celebrate the festival with the city’s well-off at Connaught Place,” Rajya Sabha MP and former Delhi BJP chief Vijay Goel said on Friday. He was speaking at a joint press conference along with South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri.
In a bid to discourage people from bursting crackers this Diwali, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has decided to hold a first-of-its-kind laser show, over four days at Connaught Place, starting Saturday.
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“The central government is working in a systematic manner to ensure there are no hiccups in the process of registration of the unauthorised colonies. Provisions are being introduced to prevent the settlers from being subjected to litigations legal hassles by the revenue and the income tax department,” Goel said.
After the Centre’s announcement to grant ownership status to residents of unauthorised colonies, the ruling AAP and the Congress jostled to appropriate credit for the same.
While the AAP claimed that the proposal to regularise such colonies had been mooted by them, the Congress said it had set the ball rolling while it was in power in the national capital.
While the experts claimed that the announcement was timed precisely to reap electoral dividend, they sounded a note of caution saying it would be a long-drawn process to regularise the colonies and there could be obstacles on the way.
Ploy to reach out to settlers
The move is being seen as a ploy to convince the dwellers of these colonies that it was the central government which strove for regularisation of the settlements.