New Delhi: The Congress on Friday slammed both the AAP government in Delhi and the BJP-led Centre for indulging in a blame game over flooding in the national capital. “This blame game between Delhi and Centre and between the AAP and the BJP has been going on for the past 9 years. The residents of the national capital are suffering due to their blame game,” Congress media head Pawan Khera said.
The Congress leader pointed out that the flooding of the city was mainly due to choked drains which have not been cleaned for the past many years. “I was part of the previous Sheila Dikshit government. I know that a timetable showing which drain was desilted when used to be on the table of the chief minister. There was a system. I challenge the AAP government if they can show any such timetable for cleaning the drains. You are always in expansion mode but you need to focus on the state where you have won,” he said.
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The Congress leader further slammed Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for writing a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah saying the flooding in Delhi was due to excess water released in the river Yamuna by the Haryana government from the Hathni barrage and asking Haryana chief minister ML Khattar not to do so.
“I was very shocked when I saw the letter asking the home minister not to release water from Haryana. This is an irresponsible letter. Do you want as chief minister of Delhi to cause havoc in neighboring Haryana? Do the work that you should be doing as chief minister of Delhi. If you cannot function as you should be and are not doing your work, you cannot blame the neighbouring states,” Khera said.
The Congress media head also targeted PM Modi for expressing concern over the flooding of the national capital from France. The PM called on Lt Gov VK Saxena from France to enquire about the city floods. “This is nothing but theatrics. The PM shows concern only when he is abroad. Why did the PM not say anything when he was in the country? Earlier also, he had shown concern over burning Manipur from abroad but did not say a word when he was in the country,” Khera said.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “Why did the PM not call the home minister over Manipur from the US.” Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary said: “It is sad that the ruling party in the national capital is only concerned about vote bank politics and not about the people.”
“We had an emergent meeting of senior leaders on Thursday. We have worked out a plan to provide relief material to the people who are suffering due to the floods. We have asked our workers to provide relief in the same way we did during the pandemic,” he said. Chaudhary said that flood water reaching high levels up to the Red Fort and the Civil Lines areas was shocking and the situation could have been avoided if the Delhi government would have taken solid steps in time.
