Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is running for re-election in 2020 Delhi Assembly election
Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) delivered an amusing and punchy response late Monday night to an attack by Union Minister Prakash Javadekar over a law to regularise nearly 2,000 unauthorised residential colonies in Delhi. After the BJP leader posted tweets claiming the Modi government had done in 3 months what Mr Kejriwal's AAP could not in 5 years, he wrote: "You (referring to the AAP) cannot fool all the people all the time".
The AAP's tongue-in-cheek response: "Agreed! That's your area of expertise".
Last month the centre passed a bill to grant ownership rights to residents of 1,731 unauthorised residential colonies in the national capital. The move has been seen as politically significant since it benefits 40 to 50 lakh migrants who backed the AAP in large numbers in the 2015 Assembly election and could be a critical vote bank in next year's polls.
In a series of three tweets Mr Javadekar claimed the AAP was trying to create confusion over the issue and said "within a few days people will start getting final registry".
"35,000+ residents of unauthorised colonies have already filled up their forms to take ownership rights of their buildings and plots. Within a few days people will start getting final registry," he wrote.
"@AAPDelhi government was expected to complete maps of 1731 unauthorised colonies which they failed to do in 5 years. @narendramodi Govt completed this work within 3 months with the help of satellites," Prakash Javadekar tweeted today, accusing the AAP of "again trying to confuse people on unauthorised colonies".
Mr Javadekar was hitting back at claims by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia that the centre had been "blatantly lying" about regularising the colonies and had "cheated" the residents.
"BJP leaders have been claiming that 100 property owners will receive registration papers before the assembly elections, and the rest will receive after. Now they say registration will happen after six months," Mr Kejriwal said last week.
Mr Sisodia drove home the point this morning, referring to a tweet by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri that said residents will get registry for ownership within 10 days.
The BJP's "lies" had been exposed, the Deputy Chief Minister added, pointing to the FAQs section of the DDA (Delhi Development Authority) website.
The FAQs purportedly say that the PM-UDAY (Prime Minister - Unauthorized Colonies in Delhi Awas Adhikar Yojana) is a decision of the Union Cabinet to confer ownership or transfer/mortgage rights to residents of unauthorized colonies in Delhi.
However, in response to another question - if this amounts to regularisation of the colonies it says it is neither regularisation of unauthorised colonies nor structures therein.
With input from PTI