The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress on Sunday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would not give poor families a free gas cylinder on Holi — just five days away — as it had promised in its pre-poll manifesto. The BJP hit back saying that it was committed to fulfilling all its promises and blamed the AAP for leaving Delhi’s budget with a ₹7,000 crore deficit.
The opposition has targeted the BJP over the latter’s free gas cylinder promise just a day after the Delhi government cleared the ₹2,500 monthly allowance scheme for women with a provision of ₹5,100 crore — another pre-poll promise of the BJP. Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said that the AAP should focus on “unfulfilled promises in Punjab” and corruption cases.
“(Leader of opposition) Atishi is surrounded by hopelessness…despite being in government as a former chief minister. Her behaviour shows that she did not learn how the government operates. For any government work a legal and constitutional process has to be followed. If the BJP doesn’t approve the budget in cabinet, how can it be made operational? The AAP’s work was to just make announcements, but our focus was to deliver to the public. The AAP should worry about Punjab and corruption of Arvind Kejriwal. We are committed to delivering on all our promises. It is taking time to fill the holes the AAP has left. They have left a gap of ₹7,000 crore deficit in the Delhi budget. Atishi will have to respond to the loot they have carried out in Delhi over the last 10-11 years,” Sachdeva said.
In its pre-poll manifesto, the BJP had said it would provide LPG cylinders for ₹500 to women from poor families, and one free cylinder each on Holi and Diwali. The BJP had also promised to provide financial assistance of ₹2,500 monthly to women from poor families under the Mahila Samridhi Yojana.
The Delhi cabinet on Saturday approved Mahila Samridhi Yojna, a ₹5,100 crore yearly scheme aimed at empowering women in Delhi. A committee, chaired by chief minister Rekha Gupta, has been constituted to oversee the implementation of the scheme. The committee includes Ministers Pravesh Sahib Singh, Ashish Sood, and Kapil Mishra as members.
Atishi had previously said, “The BJP promised that ₹2,500 will be deposited into the accounts of women by March 8 but that didn’t happen. The registration has not started yet. Women are not aware if they will get the amount or not. It wasn’t a guarantee but a hoax.”
Former Delhi cabinet minister and AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj said: “The Prime Minister had promised the women of Delhi that before March 8, ₹2,500 will start coming into their bank accounts…No money came into anyone’s account. The second promise was that women would get cylinders ₹ ₹500 and will get it for free on Holi and Diwali. Holi is after five days. Now don’t form a committee on Holi and say that this committee will decide who will get money.”
He added, “In Punjab, we never said that our promises would be fulfilled in the first cabinet meeting or on March 8, the date that was given by the Prime Minister to the people of Delhi.”
In a statement, the Congress criticised the BJP and said it has “betrayed the women of Delhi”.
“The BJP betrayed women on women’s day. During the election, they had promises to provide ₹2,500 to women but ultimately less than 10% of Delhi’s women will benefit from this scheme. The promise to provide ₹500 cooking gas cylinder and free cylinder on Holi is not even being discussed,” said Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav.
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