Delhi Turned Into Dumping Yard During BJP's Tenure In Civic Body: AAP leader

The national capital has turned into a "dumping yard" in the last 15 years of BJP's tenure in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, AAP leader Atishi said on Tuesday as her party started the 'Kude Par Jansamvad' campaign ahead of the civic body polls.

In a public meeting in Kalkaji, she said the corporation elections are not about political parties, but about concerns of people and whether their localities are kept clean.

The BJP has been in power in the MCD -- trifurcated in 2012 into north, south and east corporations and then unified this year -- for three straight terms. The high-stake civic polls on December 4 is largely being seen as a three-way contest between the BJP, the AAP and the Congress.

"Through this 'Jansamvad', we are seeking a feedback on the BJP's work in the MCD. The BJP has turned Delhi into a dumping yard in 15 years. Appeal to everyone to vote for the Aam Aadmi Party in the MCD elections and bring the Kejriwal model in the MCD to clean Delhi," Atishi said at the launch of the campaign at 13,682 booths.

The "garbage mountains" in the city have become symbols of shame and they collapse frequently and claim lives, the leader of the AAP, which is power in Delhi alleged, referring to landfill sites.

"The BJP cannot even imagine the amount of shame we have to face when our relatives and friends identify Delhi by these landfills. The garbage mountains are even unstable now. They frequently fall apart and take lives of innocents. Two workers got trapped under a huge mound of garbage on Monday," she claimed.

AAP leader and the party's MCD poll in-charge, Durgesh Pathak, claimed that fire incidents are reported at landfill sites every year, and these should be investigated and culprits put in jail.

"The BJP was trying to widen the spread of garbage at the Ghazipur landfill and a huge part of the garbage mountain fell on homes of nearby residents," Mr Pathak said.

He also claimed that as all "three garbage mountains cannot be made any higher, and the BJP is preparing to build 16 new garbage mountains across Delhi".

The landfill sites have become life-threatening and people who live near them have been facing severe health issues, mostly respiratory, for quite some time now, Mr Pathak claimed.

The lives of people have been put at risk, he said.

Rejecting the claims made by AAP leaders, MCD officials said a small portion of the wall of the Waste-to-Energy plant at Ghazipur had collapsed and that, no new landfill sites will be opened in the capital.  "A false information is doing the round that a part of the garbage mountain in Ghazipur collapsed. A small portion of the wall of the Waste-to-Energy plant at Ghazipur collapsed and immediate action has been taken to restore the same.

"It has also been falsely claimed that 16 new landfill sites are being opened," a statement from the MCD said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)