CM’s house saw three incidents of roof collapse, BJP diverting attention from real issues, says AAP

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s official residence was built in 1942 and the roof had collapsed thrice, the AAP said on Wednesday and accused the BJP of diverting attention from key issues by raising the matter of Rs 45 crore spent on the house.

Following the roof collapse incidents, the Public Works Department suggested a new house be built and this was done, Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said.

“The house has been rebuilt at an expenditure of Rs 30 crore,” he said at a press conference here. The chief minister’s official residence is in north Delhi’s Civil Lines area.

“Since yesterday, there have been attempts to divert attention from key issues such as the Pulwama attack and the Adani row by discussing the chief minister’s residence. It was an 80-year-old house constructed in 1942. There had been not one but three instances of the roof collapsing,” he said. In one, the roof of the room Kejriwal’s parents stay in collapsed; in another, it was the chief minister’s bedroom; and in the third, the ceiling of the room he meets people in gave way, Singh said.

The Rajya Sabha MP also pointed out that the lieutenant governor of Delhi had spent Rs 15 crore only on the repairs of his house, which was on six acres of land. In comparison, a new house was built for the Delhi CM on only one acre.

He pointed out that the country’s prime minister was getting his new house built at a cost of Rs 500 crore.

“Before moving into that house, Rs 90 crore is being spent only on the renovation of his existing house. The Rs 20,000 crore Central Vista project has inflated its cost to about Rs 23,000 crore so far, and the Prime Minister’s house is being built for Rs 500 crore,” he said.

The AAP leader also gave examples of spending by chief ministers in BJP-ruled states. For instance, former Gujarat chief minister Shri Vijay Rupani’s aircraft cost Rs 191 crore. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan spent Rs 65 crore on buying his aircraft, he said. Attacking PM Modi, he said that when people in the country were dying due to the Covid pandemic, he was busy campaigning for the elections. “During the COVID pandemic, when citizens were dying in hordes, the BJP government passed Narendra Modi’s budget to buy an aircraft for himself worth Rs 8,400 crore. It is bizarre how the BJP lies in view of these details. The BJP’s melodrama over COVID is nothing but a distraction from their failures,” Singh added.

He said that the AAP-led government worked tirelessly to serve the people of Delhi during the pandemic, even in the face of personal tragedy and illness.

The AAP leader stressed that the BJP wants to divert attention from these real issues by making CM’s house a topic of discussion. He asked the BJP to talk about the real issues and not try to divert attention. “On the Pulwama attack, former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik, who has been governor in four states, recently alleged intelligence failures,” he said. He also highlighted the need to discuss the Adani issue and questioned why a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) was not been set up on the matter.