Delhi Assembly passes resolution on illegal colonies amid drama

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Centre of making “the same false promises” to residents of unauthorised colonies as the previous Congress government in the city, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said he would send leaders of the saffron party for a free pilgrimage tour and give registry papers in the form of ownership rights to the eligible residents.

Kejriwal, who participated in the Delhi Assembly’s discussion on granting ownership rights to residents of the 1,731 unauthorised colonies in the city, said other parties have just demanded votes on the name of these colonies till now.

“We won’t allow you (BJP) to fight elections on this issue. We’ll send the leaders of BJP who are getting into deceiving politics on regularisation of unauthorised colonies for pilgrimage under our Mukhyamantri Tirth Yatra Yojna,” he said in his third address to the House on Monday.

Kejriwal also claimed that the BJP was going to hold a rally at Ramlila Maidan for distributing “papers in the form of some conveyance deed” to 100 people from unauthorised colonies on a pilot basis.

“This is nothing but replicating the politics played by Sheila Dikshit years ago by issuing provisional certificates to the people in unauthorised colonies. The game is over. Neither a provisional certificate nor conveyance deeds, now people want only registry. If not given, Arvind Kejriwal will ensure that people will get registry in their hands,” the chief minister said.

Later, the House passed a resolution demanding that the residents of unauthorised colonies be immediately allowed to register their properties and registries of respective properties be provided within three days of submission of documents.

Speaking before Kejriwal, Leader of Opposition and BJP MLA Vijender Gupta alleged that the resolution on unauthorised colonies moved by the AAP was a “bundle of lies”. Tearing a copy of the resolution in the House to mark his protest, Gupta said the Kejriwal government did “nothing” to develop civic amenities there.

“When the Modi government is giving ownership rights to residents at the rate of Rs. 6 and 12 per square metre, the AAP government is feeling uncomfortable. The Delhi government did not decide boundaries of these colonies till 2017 and wanted two more years. This year again it wanted time till 2021. It could have gone endlessly. Therefore, the Modi government intervened and did what Kejriwal government did not do in five years and the Congress government in 20 years,” Gupta said.

Kejriwal later went on to list out the works done by the AAP government in 1797 colonies and said that it spent ₹8,000 crore in the past five years.

“While we were laying water and sewer lines and building roads in these colonies, where were you people (BJP)? We spent ₹8,000 crore, you could also have spent something like ₹2,000 to claim credit,” he stated referring to the Opposition bench occupied by the BJP legislators.