Delhi Congress President Arvind Singh Lovely, along with former Delhi ministers and Congress workers, hit the streets on Thursday staging a silent protest demanding an all-party meeting over the issue of air pollution in the city.
Delhi Congress leaders, Mangat Ram Singhal and Haroon Yusuf, taking part in the protest march, demanded that the Delhi Government should call an all-party meeting to discuss ways to find a lasting solution to Delhi’s air pollution, which has become a recurring phenomenon for the past nine years.
They said that the Congress wanted an end to people’s suffering, and not politicisation of the issue.
DPCC Presdient Arvinder Singh Lovely, taking a dig at the AAP Government in Delhi, said the ministers and MLAs were busy planning how to run the government from jail in the event of the arrest of the chief minister by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). He alleged that they were least bothered about the situation arising from the air pollution.
Attacking the BJP and the AAP, the DPCC chief said it was shocking to see BJP ministers and AAP leaders busy with campaigns going for assembly elections in the states, and cared less for people gasping for breath in the national capital.
“Congress had cancelled all its public programmes till after Deepawali due to pollution, as the party did not want to cause inconvenience to the public.” he said, adding that today’s peaceful march was to highlight the suffering of Delhiites.
Sharpening the attack further, Congress leaders, Mangat Ram Singhal and Haroon Yusuf, pointed out that after giving permits to BS-4 and BS-3 vehicles to ply on Delhi roads, the government has banned them without assigning any plausible reason.
Yusuf added that despite the past experience of the odd-even scheme producing no satisfactory results in containing vehicular pollution, the government was again trying to force it on the people.
Slamming the government for its decision for early winter break, former Delhi minister Dr Kiran Walia and Rajkumar Chauhan said the government should have rather announced the closure of schools as ‘pollution holiday’ and not winter break.
Walia further said, “The Delhi government should own up responsibility for the Capital’s hazardous air,” and wondered whether it would force young children to attend schools when the winter cold grips the city.
Congress workers, along with Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh Lovely, and prominent party leaders including former Delhi cabinet ministers Mangat Ram Singhal, Ramakant Goswami, Haroon Yusuf, Krishna Tirath, Kiran Walia, Dr Narendra Nath and Raj Kumar Chauhan and several other leaders took out a peaceful march to the BJP office and AAP office at Rouse Avenue on Thursday.