President Pranab’s daughter joins protest against outages

Boosting the protest of Delhi Congress against massive power cuts in the city on Saturday, President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmistha too took to the streets, calling the situation unprecedented. Congress leaders organised street protests in several parts of Delhi against ensuing power and water crisis.

Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, senior leader Mukesh Sharma and scores of party workers took part in the march in Gandhi Nagar area.

Asked about her participation in the event, Sharmistha said she has been an active member of the party and would like to participate in similar events.

‘I’ve been in Delhi since my childhood. I’m an active member of Congress, I’ve a primary membership of the party,’ she said.

Criticising union power minister Piyush Goyal’s comment that lack of policy initiative by previous Congress government in Delhi was responsible for the situation, she said if that was the case then why there was no long outages in the last 15 years.

‘I am from Bengal. At one point of time, Kolkata was called the load-shedding city of the country. But now, Delhi will be called the load-shedding city. We have been hearing that good days will come. You tell me have the good days come’? she said.

Asking the BJP-led government to address the water and power crises, she also took a dig at AAP saying its government did nothing to ensure power supply during peak summer months.

‘They could have done proper planning. There was a need for proper planning,’ she said adding the problem should be addressed immediately as Delhi was facing power cuts upto 10-12 hours. 

Lovely said Congress was forced to take the path of agitation as the current dispensation at the Centre was not interested in addressing the problem.

He said as Delhi was under central rule, it was the responsibility of the Centre to address the problem of power and water.

‘I just want to say that Congress is not fond of protests and agitations. Congress has always believed in positive governance. But today, we are forced to go on a ‘dharna’. We waited so many days for this ‘deaf-dumb’ government which had promised ‘acche din’ to this nation, to react,’ he said.

The city has been facing long power cuts as the power transmission network has been severely damaged in a storm that had struck the city on 30 May.

DPCC chief spokesperson Mukesh Sharma too attacked the Centre accusing it of being ‘insensitive’ towards the problems of Delhiites.

Meanwhile, Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely along with scores of party workers was detained in Nangloi area of north Delhi when they tried to block movement of trains as part of party’s agitation against prolonged power cuts and water scarcity in the city.

DPCC chief spokesperson Mukesh Sharma, senior party leader Sajjan Kumar and a number of other Delhi Congress leaders were also detained from the protest site at the Nangloi Railway station.

The Congress workers led by Lovely had blocked movement of trains by sitting on tracks at around 9.30 am.