New Delhi, May 13 (Agency) Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah asking for his immediate intervention to halt a demolition drive carried out by civic bodies across the national capital. Sisodia alleged that in the name of the anti-encroachment drive, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was showing the terror of bulldozers to extort money from the public. He also accused the saffron party of planning to make 70 per cent of Delhi’s population homeless, including three lakh of those living in government authorized settlements.
“BJP will demolish every unauthorised unit built in 1m750 unregularised colonies and 860 juggies which will make 60 lakh people homeless. Additionally, they have also served demolition notice to 3 lakh people who have their houses built on authorised land but have done minor illegal construction like extending their balcony beyond permissible limit,” Sisodia said during a digital address. “We got to know that the saffron party run MCD is extorting money from the owners of unauthorised settlements from the public riding on bulldozer terror. I have escalated the issue to Union Home Minister Amit Shah through a letter,” he added.
The AAP leader said 70 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in such areas and were eventually allowed to settle there by BJP itself. Sisodia stated that accountability should be fixed on those who permitted illegal construction at the first place. “Rather than razing the shelter of 63 lakh people, those who allowed them to build homes on unauthorised land should be probed. It’s inhuman to make all these people homeless now that too after allowing them to settle,” he said. The Aam Aadmi Party leader also said that each worker of his party will oppose the BJP’s bulldozers. “We will not let them (BJP) bulldoze the shelter of our people. Each worker from AAP will fight for this.”