New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said that if Aam Aadmi Party gets control of the MCD, it will beautify the national Capital and accused the current MCD of trying to turn the city into a city of "garbage mountains."
During a press conference, he alleged that the civic body has plans to create 16 new landfill sites.
At present, three landfill sites — Ghazipur, Okhla, and Bhalswa — are located on Delhi borders.
"People living in the vicinity of these landfill sites are affected by the foul smell emanating from these garbage mounds and a host of other issues. Their life is literally like hell. We have heard that there are plans to make 16 new garbage mountains in the national capital," the CM said.
On the other hand, he said, the AAP government is developing Delhi into a city of parks and lakes.
"Today, Delhi is known for its education and health facilities and these people want to turn it into a city of garbage mountains. The government is working to make Delhi a City of Tirangas, lakes and parks and these people want to turn it into a city of garbage mountains," Kejriwal said.
"If given a chance, we will beautify the national capital in a time-bound manner," he added. Sisodia had also levelled similar allegations on Thursday.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi had in a statement on Thursday said that it is "working tirelessly" to flatten the three existing landfill sites of the city.
"It has come to the notice of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) that some claims have been made that the corporation has planned setting up new sanitary landfill sites at 16 locations in Delhi.
The MCD completely denies the allegation and wishes to state in a very unambiguous term that there is no plan to establish any new sanitary landfill site," it had said. The AAP has launched a month-long campaign to highlight the failures of the BJP-ruled civic body.
As part of the campaign, groups led by AAP MLAs tried to reach Ghazipur and Okhla landfill sites on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, to stage a protest, but were stopped by police.
The BJP held the control of the three erstwhile municipal corporations in Delhi, and the AAP was the main opposition party till the terms of the civic bodies expired in May and the three bodies were united to form a single MCD.
Elections to constitute a new civic body are yet to be held.
The central government has fixed the total number of seats in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi at 250 from the existing figure of 272. This was stated in a Delhi Gazette notification issued on Saturday.
The BJP, which ruled the three municipal corporations for nearly 15 years, hit back and accused Kejriwal and his MLAs of spreading lies.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is running a "university of lies", Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta alleged on Friday following AAP's claim that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi was planning to create 16 more landfill sites here for dumping garbage.
"Kejriwal is running a university of lies to train his party leaders and MLAs to spread lies and mislead people.
"He had claimed that AAP MLAs were offered Rs 20 crore to topple his government, that has proved to be a lie as neither Kejriwal nor anyone else in his party could tell who offered money to the MLAs," Gupta said during a press conference.
The BJP and even the people have asked Kejriwal and his party questions over the liquor scam of his government but he is diverting attention by crafting lies, Gupta charged.
The MCD with the help of the Central government has removed garbage from the three landfills at Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalaswa, said Gupta who earlier served as a mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation.
He challenged Kejriwal to clarify his statements against MCD, saying the AAP was relentlessly coming out with lies against the civic body although its government in Delhi gave no fund for removal of garbage from the landfills.
The AAP on Friday took a group of people to the Bhalswa landfill site here as part of its month-long campaign to highlight the Delhi civic body's "failures" under the BJP rule, but were stopped by the police, the party said.
The group, comprising men and women led by AAP MLA Durgesh Pathak, held a protest after being stopped by the police and chanted slogans like 'Dekho dekho BJP ka chamatkar dekho, kude ka pahad dekho' (see the BJP's miracle, see the mountain of garbage). "Under the leadership of AAP MLA Pathak, a large number of people from North Delhi went to see the mountain of garbage. But, the police prevented people from reaching Bhalswa landfill site by putting up barricades," the party said in a statement.