The BJP on Saturday held a demonstration here supporting the workers of three civic bodies who are on strike against non-payment of their salaries and burnt an effigy of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly withholding municipal funds."Kejriwal government should stop misleading people on municipal funds. We have yesterday written to the chief minister giving facts on funds municipal bodies have got from Delhi government and our salary bills," BJP's Delhi unit president Satish Upadhyay told reporters.He said the salary bills were almost thrice the non-plan funds that the Delhi government gave. "We demand that Delhi government release about Rs.3,000 crore pending to the MCD (sic)," Upadhyay added.The strike by employees of the three municipal bodies entered the fourth day on Saturday. Their demands include regular salary, payment of arrears, regularisation of contractual employees and cashless health cards.
Earlier in the day the striking employees dumped garbage outside the residence of Delhi assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel to highlight their demands.Upadhyay said the Kejriwal government had used the tactic of invoking "ghost employees" of the erstwhile MCD to delay the release of funds.
"Delhi BJP strongly condemns Kejriwal's ministers for raising this ghost employees issue to tarnish the image of sanitation workers on strike for their rightful wages. There is biometric attendance registration in MCD (sic) and BJP stands by the employee's integrity, especially that of Safai Karamcharis," he said.Their tactic was to say 'Safai Karamcharis don't work and take home bogus salaries,' Upadhyay said.Over 1.5 lakh employees of the three municipal bodies have been striking work over non-payment of their salaries.Taking note of the situation, the Delhi high court has sought the response of the Delhi government, the three municipal bodies and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) by February 2.