After years of neglect, east Delhi banks on first-time councillors

NEW DELHI: Despite facing the worst neglect from the BJPruled municipal corporations, residents under the East Delhi Municipal Corporation helped the BJP give its best performance of all three civic bodies.

With five strikes by sanitation workers in the past three years leading to heaps of garbage spread everywhere, a deficit of ₹2,041 crore and lack of basic amenities such as good roads and drainage system, East Delhi remained the most neglected.

However, the results showed that the saffron party gave its best performance here winning 47 out of 63 seats, a whopping 75% strike rate.

Residents of East Delhi said that while both Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and BJP had failed to live up to their expectations, they backed BJP as they hope Prime Minister Narendra Modi will clear the mess and financial crisis in the civic body.

In unauthorised colonies such as Chilla Village, Azad Nagar and New Ashok Nagar, people said they backed BJP because the party’s face in Delhi was a Purvanchali — Manoj Tiwari.

East Delhi has several unauthorised colonies and slum clusters that have a sizable Purvanchali population.

Satish Chandra Singh, a trader in Sonia Vihar, said: “The AAP MLA has done good work here. He got the drains built. But when it came to civic elections, we decided to back BJP as there is so much work to be done here which can only be addressed if the corporation receives funds from the centre.”

In East Delhi’s Karawal Nagar, Anish Shashwat, said, “There was resentment against the party as our areas were especially neglected with drains overflowing and most roads not being built. After BJP fielded new faces, there was a feeling this is a new party in which you perform or you perish.”