NEW DELHI: The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday alleged that authorities had sent eviction notices to thousands of slum dwellers at Gandhi Nagar and that the opposition BJP was behind it.
“BJP planning to kick out families residing in Gandhi Nagar for 90 years,” senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia alleged and added that the DDA has given the slum dwellers fifteen days to vacate the land.
Sisodia, who visited Gandhi Nagar’s slum area, claimed that the inhabitants told him that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which is under the Lieutenant Governor, had served them eviction notices.
Raising concerns, the former deputy chief minister highlighted that these jhuggis have been home to families for over ninety years, with two to three generations. “Children living here approached me and asked where they would go if their homes were taken,” Sisodia stated.
“AAP will fight wholeheartedly for these families and ensure that not a single jhuggi is lost. This is Kejriwal’s promise,” he added.
‘Misleading people’
Responding to Sisodia’s allegations, the BJP alleged that the former deputy CM was “misleading people”.
Union Minister Harsh Malhotra, former Delhi minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, and BJP MLA Anil Bajpai, in a joint statement, held the city government’s “negligence” responsible for the eviction orders issued to Gandhi Nagar’s slum residents.
They said an administrative provision in the city mandates that no notice to vacate slums over 20 years old can be issued without prior approval from the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB).
As Gandhi Nagar slums are decades old, the BJP leaders stated that it was unlikely that the land-owning agency issued the notice without DUSIB’s approval. “Sisodia should clarify why the DUSIB department granted permission to the land-owning agency to demolish the slums,” they said.
If the government truly wishes to protect these slums, the DUSIB minister should convene a meeting, they added