New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party in its campaign to hit a new low every day reached a new milestone on Friday when AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj exposed their robbery of Rs 2640 crores from the MCD.
Bhardwaj informed that the BJP has been putting up their banners all around Delhi on MCD’s paid hoarding sites without paying a penny for them. He stated that each hoarding costs around 1-2 lac rupees to put up and the BJP has put up countless such hoardings in Delhi for free. Bhardwaj showed how the BJP is using MCD’s hoarding sites and how faces of leaders like Delhi BJP Chief Adesh Gupta, MP Ramesh Bidhuri and Union Minister of State Meenakshi Lekhi shine on them. He stressed upon the BJP’s lack of concern for its people and said that the money from these hoardings could have been used to pay MCD’s officers, doctors, nurses and frontline workers, but despite that the BJP did not pay the MCD. AAP will run the #BillDikhaoBJP campaign and ask them to show the bills that prove they paid for the hoardings.
Aam Aadmi Party chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said, “ Every road of Delhi bears proof of BJP’s corruption and every resident is a witness to their scams. Most of the hoardings we see in Delhi, especially the ones put up on MCD’s sites, belong to the BJP. Be it a BJP politician’s birthday, or some BJP politician getting some political portfolio, you’d always see hoardings being put up for them all around the city. These hoardings are put up at MCD’s sites, which are supposed to be paid for, but they don’t. Crores of rupees which can be earned from these hoardings are robbed off by the BJP. The BJP politicians don’t pay a single penny for these hoardings.”
“We sent our team to do some preliminary findings on this matter. They went to a few locations and surveyed numerous sites where MCD’s paid hoardings stand. The surveyors found out that all the hoardings they saw were occupied by banners of the BJP and its leaders. We have photo evidence with GPS coordinates of all these hoardings. Not a single penny has been earned by the MCD because of it,” he said.
“These hoardings are occupied by the faces of Delhi BJP leaders as well as senior BJP faces like Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta, MP Ramesh Bidhuri and Union Minister of State Meenakshi Lekhi. If these hoardings were put up following the due process and were paid for, then there must be bills and receipts for them. If they have paid for these hoardings, all these leaders who glorify themselves on these banners must present the bills and prove that they paid for the hoardings,” he added.
The AAP chief spokesperson further presented the proof and showed photos of dozens of such hoardings to the media as a sample. When hoardings are put up, there’s always a line at the bottom that mentions the name of the person. Most of these hoardings read the names of the Delhi BJP and its leaders, like state president Adesh Gupta and MP Ramesh Bidhuri. A lot of these hoardings have also been put up by the Mayors of the BJP-ruled MCDs.
“I want to ask the Delhi BJP if they put up 500 such hoardings even at a minimal rate of Rs 1 lac, then where is the entry of Rs. 5 crores that you should have paid for these hoardings? There must be proof if they’ve paid it through cheque or NEFT. Countless such hoardings have been put up by the BJP throughout Delhi. We have a very simple demand. Just show the bills and prove that you paid for these hoardings,” Bhardwaj said.
The AAP chief spokesperson explained the quantum of corruption in this matter “In Delhi, there are 1100 kms of roads under the PWD, including both directions of traffic; it becomes 2200kms of roads where hoardings can be put up. Taking a very conservative estimate of 5 hoardings per kilometre in Delhi at a minimal amount of Rs. 1 lac per hoarding, then a theft of rupees 2640 crore has been committed. Even if we assume that the hoardings aren’t put up throughout the year even then the MCD could have earned 1320 crores had these hoardings were paid for. If we check how much has been earned through the hoardings, we will get to know that the MCD hasn’t earned anything but peanuts from them,” he said.
“The reason behind this scandal is that whichever hoarding site was allotted to the vendors they forcefully got them to surrender the site and did not tender the site ever again. They then started an illicit arrangement with the vendor where half the time they’d put up BJP banners and half the time they’d put up banners of private companies. No one says a thing about it because they don’t have to pay the government or the MCD anything under the arrangement. There are thousands of hoardings of the BJP all over Delhi in such arrangements. The money that would have been used to pay the salaries of MCD’s officers, doctors, nurses and workers has not been paid by the BJP to the MCD. They are doing all of this for free,” he added.
The Aam Aadmi Party will run a Twitter campaign #BillDikhaoBJP and challenge the BJP to show bills of these hoardings. The AAP Chief Spokesperson further said that if not anything else, the BJP should at the least show bills of the campaigns that it has put up on hoardings in the last one year. The Aam Aadmi Party will campaign day and night against this and ask all the leaders like Delhi BJP Chief Adesh Gupta, MP Ramesh Bidhuri and Union Minister of State Meenakshi Lekhi whose faces are showcased on these hoardings to show the bills and prove that the hoardings are legal.
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