Sanitation workers place mounds of garbage outside Manish Sisodia's office in protest over non-payment of dues.
Hundreds of sanitation workers wheeled barrows to Delhi's deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia's office on Thursday and piled garbage at the gate. By noon, there was about two truckloads of garbage dumped outside the minister's office.
Some workers were also seen filling garbage in plastic bags and flinging them into Mr Sisodia's office through open windows, while others shouted slogans. 1.25 lakh sanitation workers are on protest in Delhi against non-payment of wages and arrears.
An angry Mr Sisodia blamed the BJP-controlled Municipal Corporation of Delhi or MCD. "The Delhi government has paid all dues for sanitation workers and before time. There are no outstanding dues from our side. The BJP must answer where the money went," he said.
He also said, ""What is the point of throwing garbage outside my office and home? If it helps them get their dues I have no problem."
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted:
On the first day of their strike the sanitation workers had protested outside the house of Arvind Kejriwal. Mr Sisodia was their target on Day 2. If their demands were not met, they said, they would protest outside transport minister Gopal Rai's office on Friday.
The workers say they have not been paid for three months. Besides salaries and arrears, they are also demanding that employees on contract be regularised and the three corporations in Delhi be unified.
The Delhi government gives the money to the MCD, which then disburses it as salaries. The MCD says though they have received the money, it is insufficient.
The sanitation workers had called off an indefinite protest in October last year amid reports of a rift between union leaders and the threat of dengue.
The BJP had swept the last MCD elections in 2012. Since then, the party has stormed to power at the Centre, but was handed a debilitating defeat by the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi elections last year.