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Bill to protect illegal buildings passed

     New Delhi: The Lok Sabha today unanimously passed the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Bill, 2006, amid allegation from the Opposition and the Leftists that it was a "belated legislation", and that the Government should have brought it much earlier and could have pre-empted the demolitions and losses suffered by the Delhites during the past three months. After a long gap, a friendly atmosphere could be witnessed in the House, as the Bill had a direct relation to attract political leverage by influencing more and more voters. Besides, what could be witnessed during the short-duration discussion was that both the Congress and the BJP, the two main political parties in the Capital, claimed to be the true saviour of the poor, who live in jhuggi-jhopri clusters and tried to capture their votes by leveling allegations against the other of being anti-poor.

    While BJP's lone MP from Delhi VK Malhotra charged the Congress-led UPA Government of being indifferent to the poor man's woes by turning a blind eye to the demolition drive for the past three months, the Congress' strongman in Delhi Sajjan Kumar, who represents Outer Delhi parliamentary constituency in Lok Sabha, counter-charged Malhotra's allegation by saying that the previous BJP-led government at the Centre always remained oblivious to the problem of illegal buildings and encroachments on public land. "Even the recommendations put forth by a committee headed by you during the NDA regime were thrown in the dustbin.......how can you or your party talk of poor man's interests, when you could not protect them when you were in power." Malhotra, who is also BJP's deputy leader in the Lower House, said that during the first phase of the Budget Session, he had suggested to the UPA Government to bring about a legislation stopping the demolition drive. "But you made a mockery of my suggestion then saying that I was trying to get political mileage out of it," he said while indicating at Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy. Participating in the discussion, Sajjan Kumar gave a valid suggestion. He said that the Bill was totally silent on the issue of demolitions within the Lal Dora of villages, and advised Reddy to include both rural and urban villages within the purview of the Bill so that the villagers could also be benefited. CPI's Gurudas Dasgupta said the illegal encroachments in Delhi take place because of the nexus of the realtors and those in power. He said this nexus should be broken if such encroachments were to be stopped in future.