Unauthorised area Sangam Vihar demands legal status

For residents of south east Delhi’s Sangam Vihar – Asia’s largest unauthorised colony, the demand is of basic amenities like road, water and electricity.

They say political parties make promises of authorising the colony, but no one does anything for them. After having seen the working of both the Congress party and Bharatiya Janata Party, its residents are now veering towards the Aam Aadmi Party, expecting the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit to deliver.

The area is packed with medium-sized shops that sell electronics, medicines, construction material, among others of which only a few offer cash memos.

Nobody asks for a receipt and transactions are conducted without bills.
Many residents do not even have any valid document as address proof due to which they don’t get voter ID cards. “The government is absolutely absent here. No tax applies here. No house tax, no water tax, no wealth tax,” says Naresh Kumar, a local.

Sangam Vihar is dominated by Jat, Ahir and Tyagi communities, and is also home to migrants, including Poorvanchalis. And most of them complain that no development work has been carried out in the past two decades.

“MP and MLAs say their funds cannot be used in unauthorised colonies. Then why do they come here seeking votes? Why do you even conduct elections here?” adds Sarojini Gulia, who runs a grocery shop.

In the Assembly election of 2013, AAP’s Dinesh Mohaniya had won the constituency seat with a margin of 777 votes. This time, BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi also has several people rooting for her, but Congress has been pushed to a distant third.

In 2013, Dinesh was followed by BJP’s former MLA Shiv Charan Lal Gupta and Congress party’s Jag Parvesh, who is the son of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar.

“On Saturday, a close fight is expected between the AAP and BJP,” claims Pramod Jha, a property dealer.

While AAP and BJP have retained their candidates, Congress has replaced Parvesh and now former councilor Vishan Swaroop Agarwal is contesting.

Among the leaders, Dinesh is emerging as the favourite and likely to retain the seat. “When Arvind Kejriwal was the chief minister, he worked for the poor.

Even Dinesh Mohaniya resolved our problems and met us. Narendra Modi will not do anything and Kiran Bedi is a fraud,” says Jagdish Mehto, a resident of Sangam Vihar D-Block.

Water is one of the major concerns in Sangam Vihar, with each candidate promising relief. BJP’s former MLA Shiv Charan Lal Gupta said infrastructure required for piped water supply was laid during his tenure.

“I want to start off development work from where I left it. Development work in unauthorised colonies is my priority,” he said. He added that he was confident about winning. “I am the competition for others. I know local issues and have worked for the people,” Gupta said.

Sangam Vihar was a part of Tughlakabad constituency before a separate seat was carved out in 2008. It is in a major part of south east Delhi and has large areas of forest and unused land connected on the other side with Haryana borders. But still government interactions in this area is very limited.

In 2008, the then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s promise to regularise the nearly 1,600 such unauthorised colonies in Delhi won the Congress the elections. But then nothing happened, and AAP swept through in 2013, reducing Congress to just eight seats from 43.