MCDS denied funds due to corruption: AAP

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday said the Centre did not give a single penny in the Union Budget 2021-22 to the three cashstrapped Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp)-ruled municipal corporations in Delhi because it has “lost confidence” in the Delhi BJP and the party’s leaders.

Addressing a press conference, senior AAP leader and the party’s MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said the Union government has “accepted that the Delhi BJP is completely corrupt”. Pathak said the MCD mayors and Delhi BJP leaders earlier met Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and urged her to release a grant but received nothing.

“Yesterday, the BJP government at the Centre left the MCDS high and dry with zero allocation against their demand of ₹12,000 crore. The employees of the Bjpruled MCDS, along with the citizens of Delhi, expected that in this budget the BJP government would provide some aid to the MCD. The BJP has been ruling the MCD for the last 15 years and the reason behind no allocation for the MCD is BJP’S own Delhi unit. The saffron party’s central leadership has lost all faith in its Delhi unit,” Pathak said.

The Delhi BJP said the AAP is “concocting stories” to divert public attention from the fact that the Delhi government is not paying constitutional funds that constitutionally due to the three MCDS.

“Delhi does not figure in the list of Union Territories eligible for direct grants to its municipal corporations. This is the reason why the Centre has not given a direct grant to MCDS,” said Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor.