According to sanitation workers, after making promises about timely payment, the party never got back to them
Thousands of sanitation workers in the Capital, who voted for parties other than the Chief Minsiter Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the municipal elections, are of the opinion that the party itself is to blame for the results as it cheated the people of Delhi. Now that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come into power in the corporations for the third time, the workers hope it will address their long-pending issues.
"Though BJP didn't do much for the workers, the latter did not vote for AAP as they felt cheated. The party created major problems in the functioning of the civic bodies and did not release funds to pay even the staffers' salaries," President of the Delhi Pradesh Safai Mazdoor Union, Rajendra Mewati, said.
Mewati, who is employed as a safai karamchari in east Delhi's Usmanpur area, said: "If the CM believes that first he would make lives difficult for us and then we would vote for him, then he and his party are under an illusion. He has breached our trust."
In the last two years, three strikes by sanitation workers brought the Capital to a standstill. In January this year, over 80,000 sanitation workers across the three civic bodies had gone on a strike after they were not paid their dues for months. The Delhi government is supposed to release funds to the civic bodies for their basic functioning.
The strike first broke out in east Delhi as the cash-strapped corporation was not able to pay staffers their salary for five months in a row. Then, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia met the striking unions at the municipal headquarters at Civic Center in Central Delhi. According to workers, after making promises about timely payment, the party never returned to them.
"We had nothing to feed our families. Even at that time, the Delhi government kept indulging in a blame game rather than addressing the situation at hand," Karan Singh, a sanitation worker in north Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar, said.
The workers have been demanding regularisation of jobs, payment of arrears to those who were appointed in 2003 and 2004, and provision of cashless medical cards. Before the 2015 Assembly elections, AAP had promised them permanent jobs, pucca houses, and free water and electricity.
WHY THE ANGER
- According to sanitation workers, after making promises about timely payment, the party never got back to them.
- They have been demanding regularisation of jobs, payment of arrears, and provision of cashless medical cards.
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