 "Sisodia")
The Delhi Congress Wednesday accused the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party of trying to postpone municipal corporation polls fearing defeat, while the ruling saffron party asserted it is always fully prepared for elections.
The Delhi BJP said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was afraid of polls.
The SEC was scheduled to announce the poll schedule during a press conference at 5 PM. However, Delhi State Election Commissioner S K Srivastava told the press meet, "We were about to announce the dates, but now it will take another five-seven days to announce them."
AAP leader and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged that the state election commission has "withheld" the dates "under pressure from the BJP at the Centre".
Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar said the BJP and the AAP were trying to postpone the elections fearing defeat, as his party has been getting overwhelming support from the people of Delhi for its ongoing District Congress Committee conventions.
He demanded that the Delhi Election Commission ensure that the MCD elections are held on time, and in a free and fair manner.
"The local body elections like the MCD come under the Delhi government, but the Arvind Kejriwal government was running away from it fearing defeat," Kumar said.
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He accused the BJP and the AAP of creating communal tension in Delhi to divide people on religious lines, while the Delhi Congress had "always protected" the interest of minorities.
Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said his party never fears elections and always stands prepared for elections.
"Ten years ago MCD was trifurcated into three Municipal Corporations but the last decades experience tells that it has not helped in betterment of administration and in fact has caused economic crisis in civic bodies," he said.
He accused the Delhi government of having a biased attitude against the BJP-ruled civic bodies and alleged that the Kejriwal-led dispensation has withheld municipal funds to weaken the civic body administration.
"Now to improve the Municipal Corporations' working the Centre has decided to intervene and it's regrettable that CM Kejriwal has reacted with his well-known anarchic language," he said.
Gupta said BJP doesn't fear elections but it is Kejriwal who is actually fearing elections.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
