Ahead of MCD polls Cong launches door-to-door campaign

Delhi Congress launched a campaign to connect with voters in the wake of next year MCD elections in national capital

New Delhi, Oct 18: Buoyed by the success in recent municipal by-elections, Delhi Congress has launched a campaign to connect with voters in preparation for next year's civic polls with special focus on 21 Assembly segments where sitting AAP legislators face threat of disqualification over office of profit issue.

"The campaign process has already begun with appointment of sector incharge in 12 of the 21 Assembly constituencies where AAP MLAs are likely to face disqualification.

The campaign will cover all the 13,000 polling booths grouped in 3,857 sectors," Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken told reporters. In the bypolls to 13 wards of three municipal corporations in May this year, Congress had won five seats while AAP and BJP five and three seats, respectively.

In the first phase of the campaign, 'Meri Delhi-Mere Sapne'(My Delhi-My Dreams), feedbacks will be collected from the voters through a questionnaire, and also their suggestions to improve the civic conditions in the city.

The feedback will also try to gauze the voter mood by seeking their responses on BJP-ruled central and AAP-ruled Delhi governments. In the second phase, the feedback would be used to prepare a common document on public aspirations from their representatives in the three municipal corporations in the city.

"On the basis of the feedback from people in the city, we will try to find out solutions for the problems and seek suggestion for improving conditions in Delhi from domain experts," Maken said.

Attacking the BJP-ruled MCDs in the city, Maken said that the corporations have so much resources at their disposal that they need not go to the Centre and Delhi government to sort out their financial problems.

"While AAP government in Delhi must share part of the blame for poor fiscal health of the municipal corporations, the BJP dispensation at the MCDs too have shown little imagination to improve the financial condition," he said.

The resources with MCDs are enough to provide world class municipal services to the people in the city, he claimed. Congress will focus on solid waste management, fiscal management, primary education and health in the run up to MCD elections in 2017, he said.

The campaign will gather momentum with commencement of door-to-door contact after Diwali, he said.

PTI