BJP DROVE MCDS TO BANKRUPTCY, ALLEGES AAP; BJP HITS BACK, SAYS OWED ₹13K CRORE

NEW DELHI: A day after the Delhi government said it would give ₹938 crore to the three municipal corporations of Delhi (MCDS) to pay employees salaries, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said its leaders have driven the Capital’s civic bodies to bankruptcy due to their alleged “rampant corruption”.

The BJP – which leads all three municipal corporations in the capital — dismissed the allegations as “baseless” and said the money assured by the AAP government is “not even onethird” of what it owes the MCDS for the third quarter of the financial year 2020-21.

“Despite knowing that the Bjp-ruled MCD owes more than ₹6,000 crore to the Delhi government, we have released ₹938 crore because we do not want the MCD employees to suffer any more. This money was meant for government departments and schemes. The Delhi government has given loans to the Bjp-ruled MCDS several times in the past six years. But rampant corruption by BJP leaders have driven the MCDS to bankruptcy — they cannot even pay their employees...,” Atishi, the AAP’S Kalkaji MLA said on Friday.

Employees of the three MCDS — from teachers and doctors to horticulture staff and sanitation workers — have been on strike, on and off, for several months now, protesting against the delay or non-payment of salaries. On Thursday, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had said the government would give the MCDS ₹938 crore to pay their staff.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said: “The allegations by MLA Atishi are baseless. The party is misleading people by portraying as if the ₹938 crore is some sort of a “special grant”. The amount is actually less than one-third of what the Delhi government owes the three MCDS for the third quarter of 2020-21. The government owes ₹13,000 crore to the three MCDS in total.”