BJP leader Ramvir Singh Bidhuri.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday called out the Delhi government saying that the allocation for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was “almost doubled” as soon as it came to power in the civic body. The BJP also called it mostly a “copy-paste” of the previous years’ budgets.
Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri claimed that “at least ₹32,000 crore of the MCD was pending with the government” when the BJP ruled the erstwhile three local bodies.
BJP MP Manoj Tiwari alleged that the move proved how Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had given a “step-motherly treatment” to the MCD when the BJP was in power.
“Kejriwal did not release funds even when the Mayors of the three civic bodies protested outside his house,” said Mr. Tiwari, adding, “We are not against the increased allocation, but this shows their biased politics.”
In this year’s budget, Mr. Gahlot said that the government will provide a total financial assistance of ₹8,241 crore to the local bodies, including a loan of ₹850 crore.
The fund allocations for the civic body had seen a decline for three years in the past. While in 2022-23, the total allocation was of ₹6,154, in the financial years 2021-22 and 2020-21, the same was ₹6,172 crore and ₹6,828 crore, respectively.
Education model
Mr. Tiwari also attacked the government over its education model. “The allocation for education is similar to that of last year. But the question is where this money is going. They have not built a single school or college in eight years. Looks like, Kejriwal is going to siphon this year’s ₹16,575 crore also by making a classroom worth ₹5 lakh in ₹30 lakh.”
Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva said that there was nothing new for the public in the budget. “The Finance Minister read the budget like a serial for two hours and 27 minutes, but nothing new came out of it. The nine schemes announced in the name of clean, beautiful and modern Delhi are all old,” Mr. Sachdeva said.
Mr. Sachdeva also slammed the government for reducing the budget in important sectors such as health and transport.
Mr. Bidhuri said, “Of the ₹78,800-budget, only ₹15,772 crore has been kept for infrastructure schemes which is not sufficient to make Delhi a world-class city.”
“The budget is just an attempt to hoodwink the public. This is the reason that the ruling party members also did not show any interest in the budget and were in a sleeping mood during the budget presentation,” he said.