By TCN Staff reporter,
New Delhi: PR Sawheney, mayor of Municipal Corporation of Delhi, had to face the heat of angry residents of Jamia Nagar, when he visited Jamia Nagar on Wednesday, 18th August, so much so that he had to leave the area within 15 minutes.
The local residents protested against the MCD and the mayor, asking him why he bothered to visit the area at all, when the situation of dengue in the area has turned worst.
He was there to take stock of the situation in the backdrop of increasing dengue cases being reported from the area.
It all started when the mayor told the angry crowd that MCD can not clean the big dirty drain because it belongs to UP irrigation department. Soon a scuffle and heated argument followed between the residents who were demanding that the drain be desilted, and the MCD officials accompanying the mayor.
The angry crowd replied the mayor that if the drain belonged to UP government why he had bothered coming to the area at all. Realizing that the situation had taken a nasty turn, the mayor soon left the area. Later on the mayor reportedly claimed that the attack was pre planned.
The drain or nullah has been a big mosquito breeding ground. One can easily spot debris and silt strewn all around, along with the accumulation of rain water making the nullah a deadly source of dengue mosquitoes.
Talking to TwoCircles.net, Mohammad Jamaluddin, the local Congress MLA, pointed out, “The drain, though it belongs to UP irrigation department, is cleaned by us every year. But this time, MCD had neither the money nor the staff. We cleaned some of it using our own resources.”
Expressing his anguish at the lack of serious response from the mayor, he said “I briefed him about the problems of lack of sanitation in the area and the rising number of dengue cases. I also demanded that a special dengue check-up centre be set up at the MCD dispensary in the area, but there was no response from the mayor.”
Mohammad Riyaz, president of Ideal welfare association, was there on the spot and was leading the protest against the mayor visit.
Talking to this correspondent he said that, “MCD has been negligent and careless when it came to Jamia Nagar. Had the same number of people died in any other locality, Safdar Jang Enclave, for instance, it would never have been so inactive and negligent.”
The visit of the mayor also saw burning of his effigies by the activists of Republican Party of India (RPI)