'Garbage mountain', says Arvind Kejriwal, sounds bugle for Delhi municipal polls

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. (File image)

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday said the upcoming civic body polls will be fought on the garbage issue, promising that the national capital will get rid of garbage if Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) gets the control of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

“During 15-year rule in civic bodies, BJP has given three garbage mountains to Delhi. Due to these landfill sites, people living in the surrounding areas have been undergoing health problems. BJP has turned Delhi’s streets into garbage dumps,” said Kejriwal.

Ahead of elections for the unified MCD, Arvind Kejriwal along with his deputy Manish Sisodia visited the Ghazipur landfill site today amid a clash between the BJP and AAP workers. Civic body polls in Delhi are expected to be held at the end of 2022 or early next year.

The AAP has made sanitation the central issue, accusing BJP of corruption and filling the city with waste during its rule.

“Ghazipur garbage mountain is the mountain of BJP’s bad deeds and corruption in MCD. They (BJP) have cheated the people of Delhi. MCD has done nothing in 15 years and the AAP government has many development works to count in its five-year rule in Delhi,” Kejriwal added.

He said the (BJP) blames him for not releasing money to MCD. “In 15 years, MCD has spent 2 lakh crore and this was public money. Where is the accountability? 1 lakh crore has been paid by Delhi government,” he said.

Taking a dig at Union home minister Amit Shah over funds, Kejriwal said, “Amit Shah visited recently and abused me that I am not giving money to MCDs. I want to ask him how much did Centre pay to the civic bodies of Delhi?”

As per reports, the garbage at three landfill sites - Bhalswa, Ghazipur and Okhla has accumulated to 300 lakh metric tonnes on 152 acres of land.

Ahead of Kejriwal’s visit to Ghazipur, BJP workers protested against him. AAP workers also reached the site, which led to a face-off.

This year, all three municipal corporations of Delhi – North DMC, South DMC and East DMC – were merged into one entity. The central government has fixed the total number of seats in the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi at 250 from the existing figure of 272.

In the 2017 elections, BJP had won in 181 wards municipal wards of south, north, and east Delhi, sweeping the elections.