Latest news with #SheilaDikshit
The Hindu
20-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Leaders pay tribute to ex-CM Sheila Dikshit on 6th death anniversary
Cutting across party lines, senior leaders such as Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal, and Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav, paid tributes to the longest-serving Chief Minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, on her sixth death anniversary on Sunday. 'Humble tribute on the death anniversary of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshitji,' Ms. Gupta wrote on X. In a post on the social media platform, Mr. Kejriwal said, 'On the death anniversary of Delhi's former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, I pay my homage to her.' Mr. Yadav, along with several Congress leaders and workers, paid floral tributes to Dikshit at the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee office. Attacking the BJP and AAP on the occasion, he said the welfare schemes introduced by Dikshit for slum dwellers, street vendors, Dalits, minorities, and the marginalised have nearly been shut down by the former AAP government and the present BJP regime. 'Delhi had witnessed massive development when the Congress government, headed by Dikshit, was in power for 15 years and came to be known as the golden era of Delhi. The Delhi metro, flyovers, underpasses, CNG fleet of public transport, including DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation), well-paved roads, modern hospitals, new universities, colleges, and schools, and green cover changed the face of the Capital,' he said. Mr. Yadav said the people of Delhi still remember Dikshit for the 'unprecedented development works carried out' during her tenure as the CM.
Indian Express
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
A Tale of Two Cities: How Delhi's RWAs get the job done
It is the best of times; it is the worst of times. It is the age of speed-dialling government agencies to prune trees and bushes; it is the age of garbage and water trucks unable to enter narrow streets and turning back. It is the epoch of MLAs and MCD councillors smiling through complaints of sarkari (government) inefficiency to maintain good relations with the complainants; it is the epoch of work promptly promised but begun long after private contractors have solved the problem. It is the season of street vendors plying their trade under threat of police action; it is the season of domestic workers walking out of houses under the faceless gaze of CCTV cameras operated by the same people they work for. It is a tale of two cities, often unfolding in one. Take Delhi, for instance. An hour's drive across the city's southern half will reveal two sides — gated societies with freshly trimmed grass next to localities with rivers of sewage. Most of these societies have a Residents' Welfare Association (RWA); they are considered NGOs by the government under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and have no legal powers — but they do have social ones. Since the 1970s, they have been considered powerful links between authorities and city dwellers. Former Congress CM Sheila Dikshit would famously meet RWA representatives during her tenure. The Aam Aadmi Party even promised them more funds in their 2020 and 2025 Delhi Assembly poll campaigns. WhatsApp groups are often full of demands by locals asking their elected RWA representatives to reach out to the civic authorities for road repairs, security, street lighting, or cleaning sewage pipes. But there are caveats too. RWAs are often seen as conservative bodies, with only residents who pay to vote allowed to participate in decision-making. Young tenants frequently report monitoring non-vegetarian cooking, entry and exit of opposite-sex guests, and playing loud music. Urban planning scholars like D Asher Ghertner have pointed to how RWAs may have made things easier for the upper class, but have excluded the poor from much of the decision-making that affects their lives. With Delhi's administration changing political colours, The Indian Express travels to six localities around South Delhi — across income groups — to see how its RWAs, seen as the most influential in the city, are dealing with a range of issues. The affluent colonies In Greater Kailash 2, the primary issue seems to be encroachment. RWA president Ram Sharma says street vendors, who are supposed to only put up temporary stalls, have ended up making permanent structures — sometimes even building small huts in the back alleys of flats. With the patronage of some residents, they share electricity and water connections or, in some cases, allegedly hijack them. 'When there's confrontation, we've even gone to the police and High Court. GK-2 is affluent but there's so much dirt. People have started calling it gutter Kailash,' says Sharma. 'Sometimes vendors go away if we take the help of the police but they come back,' he adds. 'There was once a structure between flats with a woman and her mother living there. They started it as a mud structure, then made it pucca. We got their bathroom destroyed. They even offered money to stay here but obviously, we wouldn't accept.' The RWA has also written a letter to recently elected BJP MLA Shikha Roy, saying the colony is in danger of becoming a 'glorified slum.' Ratna Sahi, RWA president of Sheikh Sarai's Triveni Apartments, has a similar complaint. While there are many issues of a civic nature — road or sewer lines not being repaired promptly — the biggest grouse seems to relate to drivers and domestic workers, many of whom work in the locality and come from the nearby Jagdamba slum. Sahi says buses are parked outside the locality boundary late at night. 'In 2019, we moved the High Court to stop this illegal parking. In December, we even filed a contempt of court petition, with pictures of what goes on,' says Sahi. 'The traffic police commissioner came and fined them, but you know, a fine doesn't work. You fine them Rs 500, the bus and truck drivers will share the cost. You take action with a crane or whatever, only then it works,' she asserts. Security is a concern in Vasant Kunj's C-9 block too. RWA Vice-President S K Kapoor says that while the body doesn't try to deal with street vendors — they forward any complaints to the MCD — he has instituted regular documentation of anyone who enters and exits the block, particularly domestic workers and dailywage labourers. 'Crime goes down with fear, not the police,' he says. 'I've created fear with all this, registration of who's coming in… If something happens, they know they'll get caught. I'm just here to do public service.' The other side The view changes down the income ladder. Over in Kalkaji Extension's DDA colony, for the erstwhile Bhoomiheen Camp slum-dwellers, the most common complaints are drugs being dealt to children, sewage discharge overflowing the streets, and seepage so rampant that houses risk falling. Geeta Das, 'ad-hoc' president of the colony's RWA, is often met with requests to get windows repaired, bathroom pipes unblocked, and pensions released from government coffers. She's not the elected president as a formal RWA can't come into place till all houses are constructed and allotted, but because of her promptness in getting rid of a mountain of rubble around the locality when she first moved in, the DDA 'recognised' her as a leader 'who wants to take society in a good direction', she says. She, along with 12 other residents, has formed an ad-hoc body. A major concern of the area is the sale of marijuana and alcohol out of the DDA flats, often to youngsters. Das says she has written letters to the Deputy Commissioner of Police and DDA to investigate the identities of the men but hasn't gotten an appointment with the latter's chief engineer in months. 'There are 2,000 families living here and some of the flats have been rented (to outsiders). That isn't supposed to happen. Some flats have four residents, some 12, but the size of the house remains the same – one bedroom and a drawing room…,' she claims. At Aya Nagar, a village on the Delhi border, residents complain of dysfunctional tubewells, blocked sewage lines and roads so narrow that even ambulances find it difficult to enter if a family has an emergency. But the biggest problem, they claim, is having to pay bribes to get any construction done in the area. 'We've written to the MCD and MLAs… but nobody has helped,' says Kush Kumar, President of the C-3 block's RWA. For other issues, like water supply and garbage collection, tanks and trucks are brought in at personal cost, with the RWA collecting money based on the issue that crops up. 'The RWA is powerless (against the authorities),' says a local. 'What will they do?' But there are also stories of solidarity. Madanpur Khadar, another border village of Delhi, deals with many of the same issues. But Abdul Wari, public secretary of a local RWA, says the body bands together whenever government agencies fail to come through. He says, 'If garbage isn't collected on a day, there could be any number of reasons – maybe the truck's CNG tank didn't come, maybe the driver fell ill – but we have a WhatsApp group with residents and authorities. We send photos, they say it'll be taken care of.' 'Once, a resident wanted to bring a relative's corpse back from the hospital but the ambulance needed Rs 1,800,' he says. 'We got a letter signed by the committee, didn't ask for any donation, and used the money to help them out. We don't get any government funds but we keep a record of all that we collect. If someone isn't well, we try to help.'
India.com
28-04-2025
- Politics
- India.com
Zee Education Conclave: Delhi CM Rekha Gupta Criticises AAP, Calls Sheila Dikshit 10 Times Better
At the Zee Education Conclave 2025, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta strongly criticized the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and praised former CM Sheila Dikshit. Gupta said in Hindi at the conclave, "Sheila Dikshit was ten times better than the disaster government of the last ten years." Her statement shows that she believes Dikshit, who served as Delhi's CM from 1998 to 2013 with the Congress party, did a much better job than the AAP government, which she called a "disaster." Sheila Dikshit is remembered for modernizing Delhi, improving public transport, and starting projects like the Delhi Metro, although her time in office was also linked to corruption issues during the 2010 Commonwealth Games. #ZeeEducationConclave | Zee कॉन्क्लेव में दिल्ली की सीएम रेखा गुप्ता ने कहा- '10 साल की आपदा सरकार से शीला दीक्षित 10 गुणा बेहतर थीं' WATCH LIVE - #Education #ZeeLive #ZeeNews #CMRekhaGupta #RekhaGupta@ShobhnaYadava @gupta_rekha — Zee News (@ZeeNews) April 28, 2025 Rekha Gupta, who became Delhi's 9th Chief Minister in February 2025 and is the fourth woman to hold the post, used the event to highlight her focus on improving education. Her comments also show the BJP's strategy to present itself as a better choice by reminding people of Dikshit's positive work, especially after AAP's defeat in the 2025 elections. After the BJP returned to power in Delhi after 27 years, Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said that Delhi had been looted many times — sometimes by invaders and sometimes by its own governments. She added that if the BJP had come to power in Delhi at the same time as it did at the Centre in 2014, the city would have looked very different today. However, she said, "better late than never," and noted that Delhi now has a triple-engine government. She stressed that if everyone works together, the development speed will increase many times.
