NEW DELHI: In a letter to lieutenant governor VK Saxena, AAP legislator Somnath Bharti on Wednesday accused him of indulging in politics over the now-halted Mehrauli demolition drive and trying to malign the clean image of CM Arvind Kejriwal.The MLA claimed that the LG had issued a press release stating that the flawed demarcation in Mehrauli was due to the AAP government, while in reality, the survey report, which became the basis of the demolition order, was neither shared with the office of the chief minister nor with that of revenue minister Kailash Gahlot.Delhi Development Authority, the land-owning agency that was carrying out the drive, earlier submitted in the high court that the demolition would be done only as per the demarcation report prepared in 2021 and only encroachers would be removed.Bharti alleged that the LG’s decision to go ahead with the demolition was contempt of Supreme Court judgments because revenue office matters fall in the jurisdiction of the chief minister of Delhi and, hence, it should have gone through the CM’s office or his cabinet. “Any direction given on a revenue office matter by the chief minister of Delhi or his cabinet cannot be disrespected by the executives and any deviation from this will amount to the dereliction of duty and the contempt of Supreme Court,” he claimed. Gahlot on Saturday wrote to the district magistrate (south) to conduct a fresh demarcation study, but the order was not followed.The leader of opposition in the assembly, BJP’s Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, claimed that Delhi government itself accepted that such a situation had arisen due to the wrong survey of its revenue department. “Gahlot himself has accepted that there was a mistake in the survey of Delhi government officials. That is why the survey has been ordered again,” the MLA said. “Due to the mistake of the officers, people have lost their home, so it is not only the responsibility of the officers but also of the revenue minister,” he insisted.Bidhuri said the double standard of the Kejriwal government had been exposed. “Houses are being demolished due to the wrong survey of Delhi government officials while AAP functionaries are shedding crocodile tears standing with the uprooted people. The public has understood that this disaster would not have happened if Delhi government had not shown such carelessness,” he alleged.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/aap-bjp-blame-each-other-on-mehrauli-mess/articleshow/97959187.cms