Gahlot resignation: Delhi Congress calls AAP a sinking ship

New Delhi : Calling AAP a sinking ship, the Congress on Sunday blamed the corruption in the AAP government for the sudden resignation of Delhi Minister Kailash Gahlot, saying the ruling party was caught in a web of corruption, commission and mal-administration.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee President Devender Yadav said AAP ministers and MLAs are either going to jail or deserting the party fearing the Enforcement Directorate.

Yadav said Gahlot was a close associate of AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and his exit from the Delhi Cabinet and the AAP has exposed the party’s internal dirty politics and secrets.

The Delhi Congress chief said that two of the reasons cited by Gahlot in his resignation letter to Kejriwal were the AAP government’s failure to clean the polluted Yamuna, and the corruption in the construction of the “Sheesh Mahal” or former CM Kejriwal’s official residence.

“We had promised to transform the Yamuna into a clean river, but now the Yamuna is perhaps even more polluted than ever before,” he said.

Yadav said that Ghelot had only validated Delhi Congress’ charge of corruption and misrule by the AAP leaders.

He said that the AAP had lost the faith and trust of the people, and the party’s disintegration was on expected lines.

Referring to the corruption allegations levelled by Gahlot against the Delhi government, Yadav said Kejriwal must now be afraid of getting exposed.

Congress General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala said, "This resignation is not related to the Congress as we have no alliance with the AAP in Delhi. It is their internal matter. However, the people of Delhi are suffering due to the ongoing conflict between two individuals and their respective parties..."

Citing challenges like corruption and AAP’s deviation from the path of fighting for public welfare, Gahlot on Sunday resigned from the Delhi Cabinet and the party, delivering a big blow to the AAP ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled to be held in February.

On Sunday afternoon, DPCC chief Yadav addressed thousands of Congress workers, street vendors, sacked bus marshals and local residents at Ghonda Chowk in Ghonda Assembly in North East Delhi, on the 10th day of the Delhi Nyay Yatra.

He said that the non-implementation of the Street Vending Act to provide separate vending zones to street vendors by the Arvind Kejriwal government has affected lakhs of poor people who were being harassed daily by the police and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) officials.

He said that when the Congress-led UPA government was at the Centre, a Street Vending law was passed in Parliament at the initiative of then Urban Development Minister Ajay Maken, to make street vending a right to livelihood by giving them separate vending zones, but the Kejriwal government only tried to displace them by snatching their livelihood.

The Delhi Nyay Yatra on Sunday covered the Ghonda and Seelampur Assembly constituencies before concluding at Nala Road, Jaffarabad.

Yadav said that the objective of the Yatra is to get Delhi rid of the corrupt and incompetent parties like the AAP and the BJP.

He said that the people of Delhi now want Congress back in power as they want a government that works for the people, provides them justice and prosperity, and saves them from the agony suffered in the past 10 years.

The Delhi Congress President said that the Atishi government, during the two-day Assembly session, demanded the reinstatement of the bus marshals but despite the direction of the LG to reemploy the bus marshals by November 1, the CM and Kejriwal were playing politics with the lives of the unemployed marshals.