Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Friday took to streets and joined agitating sanitation workers outside East Delhi Corporation office in slamming the BJP-led central government and the AAP government in the city for delay in payment of wages.
“You have done the right thing by protesting over your rights. Both the Delhi government and the central government are fooling you by playing the blame game,” Gandhi said.
“I will sit with you till your problem is not sorted out,” he said, amid a roar of applause.
“If you show your might, your work will be done in five minutes,” he said. This was Gandhi’s first street appearance over a city-specific issue since the Assembly polls in February which left his grand old party decimated by the AAP.
The 10-day strike by sanitation workers ended by evening but not without pitting political rivals against each other in a tussle to woo Dalit voters who form a bulk of the sanitation workforces in civic agencies.
The Delhi BJP trained its guns on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for harassing sanitation workers and not releasing funds to pay their salaries.
The AAP, in turn, put the blame on the central government for creating hurdles for solving the problems of sanitation workers.
Countering allegations of the Kejriwal government’s laxity in handling the sanitation workers financial woes, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted: “513 cr were released yesterday for MCD salaries. 180 cr for EDMC and 333 cr for North. It was promised by CM to MCD employees”.
He also trained his guns on the central government and said, in another tweet in Hindi, when it comes to transferring of the MCD officials the Home Ministry wants to take charge, but when it comes to clean garbage the ministry wants Arvind Kejriwal to do the job.
In another tweet, Sisodia said when officials do not perform then the action is taken by the Home Ministry but when it is the time of paying salaries to employees than it is for Kejriwal to make the arrangement.
Delhi AAP convenor Dilip Pandey also accused the central government of trying to cut on fund flows to the Delhi government.
“They (central government) gave Rs 1,000 crore aid to Mongolia but no money to give for paying salary to Mangolpuri’s sanitation workers,” he said.
The BJP also launched an offensive against the AAP government for delay in releasing payment for sanitation workers’ salaries. Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay said the central government had given funds to the Delhi government to pay the salaries of the sanitation workers for the April quarter but the money did not reach them.
“The central government has already given you money. Stop dragging Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi into it... stop playing petty politics,” Upadhyay told reporters.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader said that Kejriwal was not serious about solving problems of the people and that he was interested in blame game only by dragging the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in all matters related to Delhi.
“You (Kejriwal) don’t know how to govern. You have been busy fighting ever since you took over (as chief minister),” he said.
