NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of indulging in double-speak on the issue of passage of the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2006, and creating hurdles in providing relief to the Capital's citizens.

Addressing a public meeting on Friday in the Subhash Nagar ward in favour of the Congress candidate for Sunday's by-election to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Seema Luthra, Mr. Maken said "the BJP had got back to what it does best -- telling lies and misleading the people by whipping up communal passions".

Claiming that the UPA Government at the Centre had gone out of the way to provide relief to the people of Delhi, Mr. Maken said that while the BJP leaders are demanding an amnesty scheme, it was their own former Urban Development Minister Jagmohan who had turned down the Malhotra Committee report during the erstwhile NDA regime.

He said the BJP should first answer the people of the Capital why despite being in power for six years in the Centre they did not initiate any steps to address the issues and concerns of the people.

"It was the Congress that had always come to the rescue of the common man and the poor and this time round also it is the Congress-led Government at the Centre that had taken the lead in giving relief to lakhs of residents."

Stating that the credit for giving relief to the citizens should go to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Maken said the UPA Government was in the process of finding a permanent solution to the problems being faced by the rehri-parti dwellers, hawkers and vendors also.

DPCC president Ram Babu Sharma, who led the party's campaign, said the Congress would win the by-election by a good margin.

He said the people of Subhash Nagar had seen through the communal politics of BJP and were in no mood to support such a lot. "The people of the area had in the past also rejected the BJP candidate, Meira Kanwaria, and this time round also they will do the same."

Developmental projects

Mr. Sharma said that with the Congress in power in the MCD, in Delhi and at the Centre, a Congress candidate would be best placed to address the problems of the people and initiate developmental projects.

Former Member of Parliament R.K. Anand said the people had voted out the NDA Government at the Centre in 2004 and they are going to do the same this time round also.

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