Congress today targeted BJP and AAP over municipal sanitation workers' strike, saying "apathetic" attitude of the two parties has "worsened" the crisis, and pressed for implementing the Fourth Delhi Finance Commission recommendations to resolve the problem.
"BJP-ruled corporations, the Centre and AAP government in Delhi should be blamed for the chaotic situation.
"It is the AAP government's apathetic attitude that has worsened financial crisis in the civic bodies," Delhi Congress spokesperson Sharmistha Mukherjee told reporters here.
Claiming that repeated protests by the staffers has turned the city into a "strike capital", Mukherjee demanded to release Rs 3,000 crore for the civic bodies in line with the Third Delhi Finance Commission and as ordered by Delhi High Court.
"And it should also implement recommendations of the Fourth Delhi Finance Commission. Governments led by AAP and BJP have money to run their respective promotional campaigns, but do not have funds to pay salaries of workers," she alleged.
She also blamed the municipal bodies led by BJP for not generating revenue through collection of various civic taxes.
"The civic bodies have made no effort to bring more households under the tax net. This would have increased tax revenue. There is also deliberate delay for over a year in coming out with a new toll tax tender," Mukherjee claimed.
South Delhi Municipal Corporation opposition leader Farhad Suri and senior Delhi unit leader Chhattar Singh also attended the briefing.
Scores of civic sanitation workers went on strike today seeking timely payment of salaries and clearing of arrears.
At the AICC briefing, party General Secretary V Narainsamy and party spokesman Raj Babbar attacked both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for the strike.
"After having shed crocodile's tears over the suicide of Dalit students..., Modi and Kejriwal have once again blatantly displayed their anti-Dalit, anti-poor agenda by refusing to pay municipal employees (mostly safai karamcharis) in the national capital", they alleged in a joint media brriefing.
Babbar lamented that a city that just about two years ago was a claimant as the best cities of the world, is yet again on the verge of becoming a garbage dump, the second time in the last seven months.
