New Delhi: Keeping up its offensive over long power outages and water crisis in the national capital, Congress today held a protest in Karol Bagh area of central Delhi and demanded immediate intervention of the Centre to address the problems.
All Indian Congress Committee (AICC) general secretaries Shakeel Ahmad and Ajay Maken, and Delhi unit chief Arvinder Singh Lovely led scores of party workers, who also brunt effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, holding them responsible for the crisis.
Speaking at the protest venue, Lovely said as Delhi was under President's Rule it was the BJP-led central government's responsibility to address the difficulties being faced by the people because of frequent outages and water crisis.
“Power crisis is not a political issue for us. It is an emotional issue. When we formed the government in 1998, power crisis was our main agenda. We have with great difficulties provided power to Delhi in the last 15 years. Delhi became a power surplus state,” Lovely said.
“Kejriwal holds the biggest responsibility because he didn't address the ‘summer action plan' even though we wrote him a letter in January regarding it. It does not matter to him whether the people are living with or without power,” the Congress leader said.
Addressing the gathering, AICC general secretary Ahmad said, “Before the (Lok Sabha) elections, BJP dwelled on slogans like ‘acche din aane wale hai'. But when the people started protesting at nights (over outages), one of the BJP ministers said ‘we promised good days, not good nights'.”
Taking a dig at the Aam Aadmi Party chief, Ahmad said that “Kejriwal is again on the campaign mode requesting people to make him the Chief Minister again”.
“AAP promised the people of Delhi that they would provide power to every house and that's why we supported it. The people have now realised Kejriwal's false promises,” he said.
Delhi has been facing long power outages for the past 15 days after the transmission network were severely damaged during a powerful storm on May 30.
Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal had earlier said that it would take another 10 days to restore the transmission network and normalise the supply.
The Congress has been holding protests, demanding immediate restoration of power supply in the capital.
Former New Delhi MP Ajay Maken said, “When we could ensure supply of 5,865 MW power, why can't they (the new government) provide 5,600 MW which is the demand? Why has it failed to replace the damaged lines? This kind of worthless attitude will not be tolerated by the people of Delhi.”
Congress had yesterday organised a candlelight march East Delhi to protest prolonged power cuts and water crisis.
