The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) has come up with a slew of promises to uplift Dalits, the poors and labourers if the party is voted to power in the upcoming MCD polls.

Party’s state president Chaudhary Anil Kumar reiterated his appeal to electorate to vote for the Congress candidates saying that the support for the party was evident from the overwhelming support to the poll campaigns. He alleged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) only betrayed the people with false promises.

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Chaudhary said the Congress fought for the rights and protection of Dalits, poors and workers and the first priority of a Congress government in the MCD would be to implement various social welfare schemes to empower the Dalit children through quality education.

While promising to restore Delhi to its previous image of ‘Meri Chamakti Dilli’ he alleged that the BJP has awarded ad hoc jobs to the private contractors so that they could earn commissions from such a deal.

Addressing a press conference at the DPCC office, Chaudhary said the BJP did not honour its promises of regularizing the temporary and contract employees of the MCD. The BJP could not provide employment to the jobless as it promised in the 2017 MCD poll manifesto, he said adding that BJP did not even mention regularization of temporary employees in its 2022 manifesto.

He said Kejriwal had made many hollow promises to the Dalits but they could not implement precious little. Temporary and contract employees in various departments of the Delhi Government have not been taken care of, he said.

He accused Kejriwal of playing with the emotions of the Dalits and that he did not ensure the safety of those who were engaged with cleaning drains and manholes where many Dalit youths lost their lives.

Counting the achievements of Congress Government rule, the DPCC president said it was the Congress Government, with Sheila Dikshit as CM, which sanctioned in-situ construction of flats for slum dwellers under the Rajiv Rattan Awas Yojna, and started construction of multi-storey flats complex at Kalkaji, but when the first phase of these flats was constructed, the BJP took credit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi handing over the keys of the flats to the beneficiaries.

He said the Kejriwal Government politicized construction of flats for the slum dwellers by renaming the scheme as ‘Mukhya Mantri Awaz Yojna’.

He called Kejriwal an anti anti-Dalit and anti-poor saying that over 45,000 flats constructed for the poor were deteriorating in various parts of Delhi, incurring loss Rs. 2000 crores from the state exchequer.

According to Chaudhary Anil Kumar, under the sixth Five-Year Plan, Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP) fund was created for Dalits on the basis of the Dalit population ration, but the MCD allocated no fund for Dalit uplift in its Rs. 14,500 crores budget, while the Kejriwal Government spent very little from the SCCP funds for Dalit empowerment.