Cong aiming to make Delhi 'cleanest, most beautiful city'

Ahead of the Municipal elections in the national Capital, the Congress party on Sunday presented its roadmap to make Delhi the "cleanest and most beautiful" city in the world.

"If the party wins the civic polls, it will make the Municipal Corporations self-reliant in two years and develop Delhi as the cleanest and most beautiful city in the world," Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said.

He said the party's top priority after winning the MCD polls will be payment of dues, including the Rs 1,563 crore arrears to sanitation workers, and regularisation of temporary staff.

Senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said: "The roadmap will remain a mere dream if the three Municipal Corporations do not become financially self-sufficient in two years." The former Union Environment minister said when he raised the slogan Pehle Shauchalaya Phir Devalaya he was "mocked", but now the Modi government is also aiming to make the country open-defecation free.

"The Swachh Bharat Mission by the Modi government is nothing but 'Nirmal Bharat' scheme launched by the Congress-led UPA government in 2011, which aimed at making the country open defecation free," he claimed.

"When the BJP came to power in 2014, three states, Sikkim, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh, were set to become open-defecation free in a matter of months. The Modi government claimed it to be a success of Swachh Bharat Mission," Ramesh said.

Hitting out at both the BJP and the AAP, he said over 60,000 sanitation workers in Delhi were not paid salaries on time even as the ruling BJP at the Centre is promoting Swachh Bharat and Delhi is ruled by AAP, the symbol of which is a broom.