New Delhi: A day after claiming that mosques were "mushrooming" on roads and government land in the national capital, West Delhi BJP MP Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma on Wednesday accused the Congress and AAP of ignoring the issue for vote-bank politics.
Asserting that he possessed evidence of encroachment, the parliamentarian claimed that nearly 100 mosques existed on government land or on roadsides in the city.
Congress and AAP leaders hit back at the BJP accusing it of "communalising" the issue for political gains in the Delhi Assembly election, scheduled to be held in early 2020. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said law and order and land issues in the national capital were under the purview of the Centre, where the BJP was in power.
"People have elected them (BJP MPs) for law and order, and land... They use people as vote bank and thereafter, they don't speak to them for five years. You can also see the law and order in Delhi," Sisodia said in a press conference.
Verma on Tuesday wrote to Lt Governor Anil Baijal, seeking formation of multi-agency committees headed by district magistrates concerned to survey such mosques, and take "immediate action" to check "mushrooming" of mosques on government land and roads in the city and his constituency West Delhi.
"I have complete evidence and a list of such mosques and graveyards on encroached land, which I will hand over to the committee. Sheila Dikshit did it and now Aam Aadmi Party is doing it. It's all vote-bank politics. Let us have a probe into it," Verma told reporters. He claimed that 20 mosques in his constituency and around 100 across the city stand on government land or roadsides.
Accusing the BJP MP of "communalising the issue", Delhi Congress Working President Haroon Yusuf said, "People of Delhi are facing problems like scarcity of water and unemployment. Instead of focusing on these, the BJP and its leaders are busy with their communal agenda. They have been voted to power to serve the people and Verma should understand this."
Yusuf claimed that to attend to complaints of encroachments a 'religious structures committee', headed by the Lt Governor, already exists. "Verma perhaps does not know this despite being a two-term MP. The religious committee receives complaints and action is taken but he seems to have no knowledge of it," the Congress leader said.
Senior AAP leader Raghav Chadha said, "It is a communal statement by the BJP ahead of assembly election in Delhi. Last time they lost so miserably that now the BJP is resorting to its pet subject of communalism." The AAP won the 2015 Delhi elections by bagging 67 of the 70 Assembly seats. The BJP had won just three seats.
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