Strike over; BJP, AAP leaders wield brooms in the national capital
Rahul Gandhi being felicitated by a group of sanitation workers at his residence in New Delhi on Saturday. (Photo: AP)
New Delhi: Politics over garbage continued unabated on Saturday, even after sanitation workers in Delhi called off their strike over salary dues, with the Aam Aadmi Party as well as the BJP taking to the streets to clean up the filth. The Congress also continued to rake up muck with party vice-president Rahul Gandhi meeting safai karamcharis for a second time and promising them he would fight for their rights.
With the strike by over 10,000 sanitation workers — that had turned the capital city into a garbage dump — providing fresh fodder to parties to launch offensives against their political opponents, the matter has raised questions about several crucial aspects, including the functioning of civic bodies and the Centre’s Swachh Bharat campaign.
After the strike ended, the cleaning of garbage was slated to resume early Saturday morning. But the day saw political parties using the opportunity to launch a tirade against each other. Both BJP and AAP leaders took to the streets as part of cleanliness drives in different parts of the national capital. The BJP termed the AAP’s cleanliness drive “a political stunt” and stressed that the city government released funds only after the Delhi high court’s intervention. BJP leader Sambit Patra questioned why the party launched its cleanliness drive only after the strike got over, while Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay accused Mr Kejriwal of keeping himself “busy fighting ever since he took over as chief minister”.
He said the Centre had given the AAP government the required money and asked him to “stop dragging Prime Minister Modi into it... stop playing petty politics”. Not to be left behind in this battle to grab eyeballs and remain in the voting public’s mind, the AAP, too, conveniently dumped the blame for the sanitation workers’ woes on the BJP and the Modi government.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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