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Journalism of Courage
After the announcement of V K Malhotra as BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, the BJP-led MCD is extending all support to Malhotra. The construction of roads at Vasant Kunj has been abandoned midway and the machinery used in the carpeting of area’s roads has been routed to Greater Kailash, an Assembly constituency that the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate might make his own.
Vasant Kunj councillor Rajesh Rajora alleges the BJP has been trying to “prepare” the Assembly constituency for its CM candidate. “It took me six months to get work started. And after working for 25 days, the contractor says that he has been asked to work on the roads at Greater Kailash first. They have left for Greater Kailash,” said Rajora. The MCD has just four machines to recarpet the road and these machines have been moved to GK on need basis.
Dense carpeting of roads takes place after five years.
“After a road is laid, it is presumed it will be intact for five years. After five years, if the road needs another repair, fresh tenders are issued. The process takes another year and a half before the construction takes off,” said an officer of the engineering department. The officer also said they were asked by the Mayor to take up the GK road first.
All Greater Kailash roads had been repaired about one-and-a-half years ago from the MCD’s project fund and so, technically, it cannot be repaired for another three-and-a-half years. “The MCD is misusing its funds in the constituency,” said Rajora.
“When the BJP inaugurated the construction work on this road they did not even invite the local Congress MLA Subhash Chopra,” adds the leader of the Opposition Jai Kishan Sharma.
But the MCD councillor of Greater Kailash OP Sharda says the Congress allegations are baseless. “Elections are far away. The BJP is not playing politics and I have nothing to do with it,” says Sharda. “No BJP member has asked the engineering department or the contractor to prioritise the work at GK,” adds Sharda.
