Kejriwal seeks fresh MCD election amid staff protests

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday sought fresh elections to the city's largest civic body amid protests by employees demanding salaries.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said the present Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), should be dissolved and fresh elections held.

"Management of an organisation which can't pay salaries to employees doesn't (have the right) to continue," he tweeted.

All the three wings of the MCD -- South, East and North -- are controlled by the BJP, the AAP's main rival in Delhi.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia too echoed the demand, saying "politics of garbage" was being played out in Delhi.

The MCD says the Delhi government, which is led by the AAP, owes money to it but is not paying up, and this is why salaries are not being to corporation employees.

Sisodia told the media that this was a baseless allegation.

"No money of MCD is due on Delhi government. Leaders of the civic bodies are telling a lie and are getting the garbage dumped outside my (camp offce)," he said.

The MCD's sanitation workers on Thursday morning staged a protest against non-payment of their salaries and dumped garbage outside Sisodia's camp office in east Delhi.

Like Kejriwal, Sisodia too pitched for fresh elections in the MCD. "BJP leaders are not able to run the MCD. So we want the central government to dissolve it and conduct fresh elections."

"We have already given money to MCD for 12 months. The MCD did not give us an account of the money spent. We should be told where that money has gone?"

Over 1.5 lakh workers of the three wings of MCD, Delhi's main civic body, went on a three-day strike on Wednesday over non-payment of their salaries.

The employees are seeking payment of arrears, regularisation of employees who have been working on contract, and merger of the three corporations.

In October last year, the sanitation employees of East Delhi Municipal Corporation went on strike with similar demands.

The MCD is the biggest of the three civic bodies in Delhi. The other two are the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which oversees the heart of the capital, and the Delhi Cantonment Board.