Delhi's ruling AAP on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has only repackaged the whole redevelopment project in the city, involving cutting down of over 17,000 fully grown trees, while the actual mastermind is the Congress.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj told the media here that the redevelopment project was introduced under the UPA government by then Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken.
"After a long wait, Congress and BJP have opened up about the Central government's redevelopment projects by the NBCC. Shockingly, the whole project of redevelopment was planned by Congress which is now being repackaged by Modi as smart city plan," he said, citing an official 2006 document.
He slammed Maken for not informing his party President Rahul Gandhi about the project amid the ongoing criticism.
"Rahul Gandhi, I am worried that Maken did not brief you that this BJP's Central Government's NBCC project was started by your Congress government.
"Here is environment impact report of 2006 when Maken was Minister of the same department. The original plan to murder trees belongs to the Congress," Bhardwaj tweeted.
The AAP spokesperson also said that a committee of the Delhi Assembly will gather at 8 a.m. on Friday at the Sarojini Nagar police station, and then visit the sites of Central government redevelopment projects and inspect the current status of felled trees.
He also criticized the Central government for making changes to the DDA's master plan and turning it into a "more commercialized project by including parking lots and a trade centre in it".
"The Central government claimed that the work for redevelopment is for residential use only but the brochures simply prove that the redevelopment is being done for commercial purpose.
"My question to Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri is when was the land converted into commercial and which department decided to do that," he asked.
Following the claims, Puri has called for an urgent meeting to replan its NBCC redevelopment project in Delhi.
Sharing the information about Puri's meeting, Bhardwaj wrote on Twitter: "Now who represented the people of Delhi in that decision making. Later everyone will curse (Delhi Chief Minister Arvind) Kejriwal for their anti-environment decision."
Asked about the ongoing criticism of the BJP government for sharing the surgical strike videos, Bhardwaj said that AAP would not like to intervene in the matters of the armed forces.
--IANS
sd/vd/him/
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
