JOIN USA day after Delhi’s vote-on-account was passed by the Parliament without provisions of extension of power tariff subsidy after March 31, the Aam Aadmi Party accused the Congress and the BJP for stopping the subsidy.
Senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia said BJP and Congress are going hand-in-glove in favour of private power distribution companies (discoms).
“Both Congress and BJP passed the vote-on-account in the Parliament. We had put the provision of continuing the power tariff till September, but they scraped the subsidy extension,” he said.
Asked why the party resigned before passing the vote-on-account for continuing the power subsidy, the outgoing education minister said, “When we tried to table the Jan Lokpal Bill, the BJP and the Congress MLAs joined hands against us. They slammed our decision of providing subsidy on power tariff. There is no point hoping that they would do something better for the people of Delhi.”
“It is surprising to note that when more than 90 per cent of the MLAs in the existing Delhi Assembly, except for the eight Congress MLAs, agree that electricity bills should be reduced by atleast 30 per cent, then how could the Central government ignore such an overwhelming majority and impose its arbitrariness on the people of Delhi ?” the party said in a statement.
The BJP and the Congress, however, refuted the charges of the AAP and accused the party for duping Delhiites.
“AAP has betrayed the people of Delhi. All the false promises of Arvind Kejriwal is being exposed. He assured that after coming to power at the Centre and Delhi, BJP will make the rates of essential services and commodities reasonable. His 49-day government misled the people of Delhi,” Delhi BJP chief Harsh Vardhan said.
“This party treated the people as vote bank and made populist announcements. In spite of objections from various departments and without taking approval of the Central government, this party made announcement to decrease power tariff. It has been said in the election manifesto of this party that the power tariff will be decreased by 50 per cent,” he added.The Congress said it is going to expose the Aam Aadami Party from Sunday.“We will expose all the promises of AAP in our Pol Khol Abhiyan (expose movement) from Sunday,” said party leader Mukesh Sharma.DH News Service