Cong, BJP, AAP in blame game over Delhi power crisis

New Delhi, June 10: The power crisis in the national capital on Tuesday triggered a blame game with the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) attacking the ruling BJP at the Centre for long outages while the saffron party held the 15-year Sheila Dikshit dispensation responsible for the situation.

As the capital continued to reel under power cuts, the Congress came down hard on the BJP, saying the government at the Centre cannot escape responsibility of ensuring power supply to Delhi as the city was under central rule. The attack by Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely came hours after Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal blamed "massive policy paralysis and poor decision making" of the Dikshit government in addressing problems in the power sector.

"Delhi is under central rule and the Lt Governor is the representative of the Centre. So it is primary responsibility of the Narendra Modi government to ensure power supply in Delhi. Instead of doing that, they are attacking the Congress," Lovely said.

While Congress and AAP targetted the Modi govt, the BJP targetted Sheila Dikshit

Earlier Goyal had a two-and-a-half hour emergency meeting with Lt Governor Najeeb Jung and senior executives of Delhi Transco, Power Grid Corporation and power utilities to resolve the power crisis. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal also came down hard on BJP, saying the party-ruled government at the Centre was neither handling the power crises effectively nor the party was allowing fresh elections in the city. "BJP (is) neither able to handle power crisis nor forming govt nor allowing elections in delhi. Completely irresponsible," the former Delhi Chief Minister tweeted.

In the morning, over 20 AAP MLAs led by party leader Manish Sisodia staged a protest outside Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan's house in East Delhi, demanding urgent steps by the Centre to improve electricity supply.

PTI