Congress lures AAP's vote bank, protests for sweepers on contract

The city Congress on Thursday staged a protest for the rights of contractual sweepers in Delhi.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) chief Arvinder Singh Lovely joined the protest of a group of contractual sweepers at Jantar Mantar, who were demanding regularisation of their jobs.

Lovely also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party  for “betraying” the contractual sweepers of the city.

“Most of the contractual sweepers are from the Balmiki community. They are deliberately ignored by the BJP who is ruling in the three municipal corporations and the AAP which made false promises of regularisation of their jobs,” he said in a statement.

The leader accused Arvind Kejriwal for betraying the Balmiki community. A group of contractual sweepers are on a sit-in from past 427 days on Jantar Mantar for regularisation of their jobs.

“Kejriwal has betrayed the contractual sweepers. They voted him and made him the Chief Minister of Delhi on his promises of a regularised job. But he just used them as a votebank,” Lovely said.

Leaders of Opposition of two municipal corporations, Farhad Suri of South MCD and Varyam Kaur of East MCD also joined the protest.

Lovely urged the Balmiki community to boycott the Aam Aadmi Party in all of the coming elections.

“The Balmiki community is waiting to teach Kejriwal a bitter lesson for betraying the poor people and making false promises only to come to power. Whenever elections are held in Delhi, the Balmiki community and the daily wage earners will boycott the AAP,” he added.

Seeking support of the community, Lovely said, “The Congress will provide justice to the contractual sweepers. The Congress councilors would take up their demands and problems on an urgent basis in all the three MCDs.”