AAP slams DDA, Vijay Goel rejects toy bank land report
Following a media report stating that the Delhi Development Authority had changed its norms to allot a plot of land to an NGO associated with Union sports minister Vijay Goel, the Aam Aadmi Party mounted an attack on the DDA alleging that the land was being made available to a BJP minister, but not to the AAP government to build Mohalla clinics and bus depots.
Goel denied all allegations. The DDA said it would look into the matter.
The report stated that Goel was alloted a plot by the DDA at Derawal Nagar to build a toy bank run by an NGO called Vaish Aggarwal Educational Society (VAES) of which Goel is allegedly the vice-president. Goel said he was no longer the vice-president of the society. “I left the organisation in 2013 and the registrar of the society was informed,” the BJP leader said at a press conference on Thursday.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, “It pains me that Delhi government is not being given land for setting mohalla clinics. Even Delhi government’s own land is not being allowed for mohalla clinics and this.”
Goel said no norm was violated while applying for the land. “VAES applied for the land in 2013 fulfilling all the formalities without any exception and at that time I was neither Rajya Sabha MP nor the minister,” he said.
He also denied that he had any role in change of layout plan to accommodate the NGOs application. “Change of layout plan is DDA on a regular basis. The plot, earlier earmarked for post office in 2000, was recommended for a temple in 2003, which means the layout was changed 14 years ago,” the minister said.
DDA vice-chairman Udai Pratap Singh said, “The point is to check whether rules were bent to favour an NGO under the influence of the minister. Prima facie, I don’t find any problem because the file was sent to the L-G for approval hence due procedure must have been followed,”
AAP’s Delhi unit secretary Saurabh Bharadwaj said the CM and health minister Satyendar Jain had written to the DDA on several instances, asking for land for mohalla clinics, bus depots, but their demand “has not been met yet”. Model Town MLA Akhilesh Pati Tripathi said that ₹8 crore had been deposited with the DDA so that a land could for construction of a children hospital.