Jagmohan’s bulldozers don’t differentiate between rich and poor

NEW DELHI, APRIL 15: The BJP high command has sent a clear signal to its local unit not to encourage the land and building Mafia thriving ...

NEW DELHI, APRIL 15: The BJP high command has sent a clear signal to its local unit not to encourage the land and building Mafia thriving in posh colonies. It has categorically conveyed to the local leaders thatinstead of protecting the builder lobby which has de-faced the entirecity from the time of Congress leader H K L Bhagat, they should assistUrban Development Minister Jagmohan and Lieutenant Governor VijayKapoor in clearing these unauthorised structures.

They should not seen to be guided by narrow political vote-bank gain asit would not pay in the long run. Secondly, there are no elections ofany kind round the corner in the city. Third, if the slum clusters are being removed why should the rich be allowed to violate the building by laws and make a mockery of city’s planned growth, goes the argument.

In fact, the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee gave a pat on the backfor Jagmohan yesterday soon after the Cabinet meeting for taking the“bold” initiative in cleansing the Capital. When some of the local DelhiBJP leaders including the Mayor and standing committee chairman expressed resentment over Jagmohan’s new drive, he snubbed them.

These leaders were planning to complain to Home Minister L K Advani that Jag Mohan was trying to weaken the party by his reckless demolition drive.

But they were cold-shouldered. So much so that Delhi BJP Chief Mange RamGarg rang up Jagmohan to tell him that the entire BJP would back his campaign. It also became clear that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi under these leaders was part of promoting the land and building Mafia.

Since the MCD/DDA and other local bodies chose to remain silent all these years under Madanlal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma, the builders thrived.Jagmohan, on his part, has also received complaints to the effect thatthe “mafia committee” and not the Malhotra committee that did the worstdamage to the city and made it one big slum.

“How can you raise density levels without raising the level of services? A third storey was allowed in some colonies without providing parking, sewage, transformers, electricity load and other facilities. And how can individual allottees of these plots convert them into a Group Housing Society where 20 flats are constructed on it?” wondered asked a CBI official investigating the cases of 70 buildings referred to it for probe by Jagmohan.

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It has been discovered that builders operating in each district of theCapital have formed cartels and they are being protected by politicalbosses, bureaucrats, police and engineers. Jagmohan had been trying topersuade these local bodies to crack the whip but but his entreaties went unheeded. Finally, he got a survey conducted by the Land and Building Department under his own ministry, got some data from the DDA and sent the files of building violations and inaction by these bodies for a thorough probe to the CBI.

Jagmohan’s drive against the rich has also sent another political signal — that the BJP is not removing the slum clusters alone but the mighty as well.