Mayor posts 'uncensored' TV bytes on Facebook

North MCD mayor Ravinder Gupta has supporters filming his interviews with TV reporters so that his ‘uncensored’ TV bytes are available on his Facebook page.

Not pleased with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ever since he has described city mayors as ‘political animals’ and wished for ‘dissolution’ of the three civic bodies, Gupta told Deccan Herald that CM needs ‘treatment for his mental illness’.

Kejriwal on Wednesday left for his 10-day treatment at a naturopathy centre in Bengaluru.

The North MCD chief has suggested Kejriwal, who is suffering from diabetes and cough, to go for Agra over Bengaluru, as per clippings of a news conference and over half a dozen interviews with TV reporters posted on Facebook page.

The Agra reference was apparently to a mental healthcare institute.
Many politicians in Delhi have started to video their interviews with journalists, TV reporters say.

“God bless them,” AAP’s Delhi unit secretary and Greater Kailash MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj said on Gupta’s tirade against the Chief Minister.

“They are desperate for publicity. Delhi people don’t even know their names,” he told Deccan Herald.

Gupta insists that filming his own interviews helps him counter censorship by news channels. “People should know why heaps of garbage is lying in Delhi. They should know who is responsible,” he said.

He added that uploading his interviews on Facebook allows him to “keep my arguments from being distorted”.

The mayor accused Kejriwal of “deserting people of Delhi” at a time when garbage crisis is deepening, with more than 1.5 lakh civic workers continuing their work strike on Saturday over non-payment of salaries.

“He is the head of this city, but he has left this city in a state of panic. Why is he holidaying in Bengaluru? Why has he gone for getting treatment for his cough at these times?” he said.

“We demand the President of India to dissolve the government in Delhi,” he added.