MCD polls: AAP kicks off 'Kude Par Jansamvad' at 13,682 booths
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party kicked off its 'Kude Par Jansamvad' campaign at 13,682 booths on Tuesday with the aim to reach out to Delhiites before MCD elections and discuss the agenda of BJP's garbage mismanagement with them.
The campaign will run for 12 days till November 20 where AAP will ask every citizen of the Capital for their feedback on BJP's work in the MCD.
In this context, AAP MLAs Atishi and Dilip Pandey participated in a 'Jansamvad' program in Kalkaji and Timarpur respectively. "The BJP has turned Delhi into a dumping yard in 15 years. Appeal to everyone to vote for the AAP in the MCD elections and bring the Kejriwal model in the MCD to clean Delhi," Atishi said during the event.
She added, "Today, the garbage mountains of BJP have become symbols of shame for Delhiites. If someone's coming from Punjab-Chandigarh, the Bhalswa Landfill greets them, from UP you see the Ghazipur Landfill, and from Haryana the Okhla Landfill. BJP can't even imagine the amount of shame we've to face when our relatives and friends identify Delhi by these landfills. The situation of the people living near the landfills is abysmal. There's birds of prey flying around their houses, rodents infesting their localities. The water is contaminated, even cancerous at most places. The garbage mountains are even unstable now. They frequently fall apart and take away lives of innocents. Just yesterday two workers got trapped under a huge mound that fell off the mountain." Atishi proceeded to ask the people of the area about their feedback on BJP's work in MCD. She said that even though being a resident of Kalkaji, she saw the disasters of BJP first hand on a daily basis, it'd be fitting for the public to give an honest review of the situation.
Responding to Atishi, a local resident got up to share her experience and said, "Garbage is piled up all over our locality. When I ask the MCD staff to clean it they outrightly refuse to do so saying it's not their responsibility. I ask them everyday, but they always refuse to clean it."
Another woman said, "The bylanes of our area are so dirty that you've to think ten times before walking on them. There's a school in the vicinity but due to the garbage the students find it difficult to go there."
Atishi concluded, "The garbage piles in our area have become landmarks of sorts. When someone comes to my house I've to explain directions in terms of which
garbage pile they have to take a turn after. I can completely understand what everyone's going through. Earlier Kalkaji used to be much cleaner than it is today.
Meanwhile, AAP leader and the party's MCD poll in-charge, Durgesh Pathak, claimed that fire incidents are reported at landfill sites every year, and these should be investigated and culprits put in jail. "The BJP was trying to widen the spread of garbage at the Ghazipur landfill and a huge part of the garbage mountain fell on homes of nearby residents," Pathak said.
He also claimed that as all "three garbage mountains cannot be made any higher, and the BJP is preparing to build 16 new garbage mountains across Delhi". The landfill sites have become life-threatening and people who live near them have been facing severe health issues, mostly respiratory, for quite some time now, Pathak claimed. The lives of people have been put at risk, he said.
Rejecting the claims made by AAP leaders, MCD officials said a small portion of the wall of the Waste-to-Energy plant at Ghazipur had collapsed and that, no new landfill sites will be opened in the capital.
"A false information is doing the round that a part of the garbage mountain in Ghazipur collapsed. A small portion of the wall of the Waste-to-Energy plant at Ghazipur collapsed and immediate action has been taken to restore the same. "It has also been falsely claimed that 16 new landfill sites are being opened," a statement from the MCD said.
As per a party statement, the decision was taken at a meeting under the leadership of Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and State convenor and Minister Gopal Rai with the AAP MLA's to discuss the strategies for the MCD elections. The statement further said that during the meeting, AAP office-bearers were assigned responsibilities on various levels to prepare for elections on all 250 MCD seats.
