Amit Shah Bats For Delhi Civic Bodies Unification, Congress Says "Control Freak"

Union Home Minister Amit Shah today accused the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi of "stepmotherly treatment" towards three civic bodies in the national capital.

Speaking in Rajya Sabha during a discussion on the Bill to merge the three municipal corporations, Mr Shah said there is nothing in government records on the objectives behind trifurcating the Municipal Corporation of Delhi in 2012.

"Ten years have passed, and the experience has been different. When the civic body was trifurcated, the objective must have been good: to give better services to residents. But this has not been the result," he said.

Listing the reasons behind this, he said, "The policies adopted by the three civic bodies are different. In the same city, there is no uniformity in policies. This is because when the civic bodies were trifurcated, their economic resources and responsibilities were not assessed properly."

Mr Shah said two municipal corporations are in no state to sustain themselves financially, so they restructure taxes and tweak policies to continue operations.

He said there is "deep resentment" among employees of the civic bodies over the differences in working conditions.

"Delhi government's step-motherly treatment is not letting these three civic bodies function properly," he said, amid protests from AAP's member Sanjay Singh.

The Home Minister said he will put forward "solid reasons" and numbers in support of his statement. "State government must rise above political considerations to give civic bodies their due," he said.

There have been more than 250 strikes involving these three municipal corporations in the past 10 years, the Home Minister said. "The number of strikes have gone up due to the step-motherly treatment by the AAP," he alleged.

Opposing the Bill, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said, "This Bill is four things: it is constitutionally suspect, it is legally untenable, it is administratively blunderous and it is politically hypocritical."

"This Bill is about control, more control and more control by a control-freak sarkaar," he said, adding that it has "nothing to do" with the improvement in services to Delhi citizens.

The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, which has been passed by Lok Sabha, aims to merge the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation and the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.

While the centre has argued that the objective of the proposed law is to bring synergy in administration and ensure better use of resources, the AAP government has accused the centre of bringing the Bill to delay the municipal polls. The BJP, the AAP has said, is staring at defeat in the urban polls.