Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Ch. Anil Kumar said that when people of Delhi were battling various problems like price rise, water shortage, water-logging, air and water pollution, the two-day special Monsoon session of the Assembly has given precedence to hike the salary of the Ministers and MLAs, as the introduction of a Bill for the same was on top of the agenda, on Monday.
Ch. Anil Kumar said that Kejriwal had announced in 2013, before coming to power, that he and his Ministers/MLAs will not accept any official vehicles, bungalows, security and other luxurious facilities, and they will only take Rs 25,000 honorarium per month to ‘serve’ the people. He said that after coming to power, the lure of perks and facilities overwhelmed Kejriwal, his Ministers and MLAs so much that within ten days of assuming power in 2015, Kejriwal sent a proposal to the Central Government to hike the wages of the legislators by 400 per cent, with a 10 per cent hike every year, which would have fetched them nearly Rs 50 lakh salary annually. He said that Kejriwal repeated this exercise in August 2021 too by sending a proposal to the Centre to hike the wages of the legislators when people were battling the shockwaves of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ch. Anil Kumar said that the pay hike was peanuts for the AAP Ministers and MLAs as they were otherwise minting crores of rupees through corruption, with Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia paving the way by selling Delhi to the liquor mafia for a price, to make the Capital “Nashe Ki Rajdhani” . He said that 80 per cent of the Delhi Ministers have been charged with various cases while 38 MLAs face over 100 cases. He said that Kejriwal had given Rs 12 lakh to each MLA from the tax payers’ money to purchase vehicles with odd-even numbers, flouting all his assurance of not squandering public money for the comfort of the Ministers and MLAs. He said that Kejriwal has not only hiked his wages, but he was also squandering public money for his election campaigns in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and tours of Punjab and other States, with impunity.
