(MENAFN- Gulf Times) A day after Delhi sanitation workers called off their strike over non-payment of salaries, which had left heaps of garbage piled up on the streets, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party came out with brooms and launched a cleanliness drive yesterday.
Blaming each other for the garbage crisis, leaders of the two parties began to clean the city.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia along with other AAP leaders Sanjay Singh, Ashutosh and Alka Lamba took part in the cleanliness drive.
Sisodia was seen cleaning the garbage littering the streets in his constituency Patparganj.
BJP Delhi chief Satish Upadhyay also took part in the cleaning drive near Akshardham. He blamed AAP leader and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for the garbage mess.
Upadhyay said: "We have a target of 48 hours to clean Delhi."
However, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh blamed both Kejriwal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said they are "masters of nautanki (drama)."
"AAP starts cleanliness drive after sanitation workers strike has been called off. Photo ops for AAP. Modi and Kejriwal are masters of nautanki," tweeted Singh.
Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said such a thing was "never witnessed" during the Congress rule.
"The problem has been created by the AAP. It is their responsibility to keep Delhi clean. For the 15 years the Congress ruled Delhi never did MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) workers face problems getting their salaries, a proper budget was made every year," she said.
The latest war of words between the BJP, the Congress and the AAP comes in the wake of a very public tussle between the Kejriwal-led Delhi government and Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung over the posting and transfer of senior bureaucrats in the national capital.
The strike by the sanitation workers provided another opportunity to politicians to add to the bad blood in the corridors of power in the national capital.
Though the sanitation workers had struck work for the last 10 days, authorities hardly seemed to be bothered about the inconvenience caused to the general public.
It required the media and a directive from the Delhi High Court for the authorities to act. As the electronic media continued to broadcast footage of garbage pile-ups in Patparganj, Mayur Vihar and other areas of East and North municipal corporations, Jung on June 12 ordered the release of Rs4.93bn to the municipal corporations to "facilitate payment of salaries to sanitation workers."
Earlier in the day, the Delhi High Court asked the city government to release the salaries of the employees by tomorrow. It also asked for a response by June 19 on the plea seeking directions for payment of salaries to the employees and removal of garbage from roads.
Amid fast-paced developments, the cacophony generated by the usual blame game among the politicians reached a crescendo.
The BJP claimed Kejriwal "doesn't know how to govern and is only interested in petty politics."
Upadhyay accused Kejriwal of keeping himself "busy fighting, ever since he took over as chief minister."
He said the central government had given AAP government the required money and asked the chief minister to "stop dragging Prime Minister Modi into it... stop playing petty politics".
But AAP leader Dilip Pandey claimed funds meant for workers' salaries were used for other purposes. Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh accused the BJP of trying to "convert Delhi into a garbage dump".
The AAP even termed the civic bodies of Delhi as the "world's most corrupt organisations," demanding a probe into non-clearance of salaries.
An AAP leader even alleged that "Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung are punishing the people of Delhi."
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