Drain deaths in east Delhi: AAP stages protest near Raj Niwas, demands L-G Saxena’s resignation

New Delhi, August 3
AAP leaders and workers on Saturday held a protest near the Raj Niwas demanding the resignation of Lt Governor (L-G) VK Saxena over a woman and her child dying after they slipped into a water-logged drain in east Delhi.

While AAP has claimed that the drain comes under the jurisdiction of the Lt Governor-headed DDA, the Raj Niwas has said the portion of the drain they slipped into was under the AAP-led Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

The woman and her son drowned in the drain of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which is controlled by the L-G, AAP MLA Kuldeep Kumar said during the protest.

“This was a murder, not an accident and the officers responsible for it should be charged with murder,” Kumar said.

The protesters, raising slogans and demanding resignation of the L-G, marched towards the Raj Niwas but were stopped by police at a barricade.

The L-G office on Friday accused AAP leaders, including Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, of issuing “patently false deliberately, misleading and blatantly improper” statements that the woman and her son drowned in a DDA drain.

“While this is undoubtedly another example of abuse and scoot typical of AAP and its leadership, the fact of the matter is that the drain in which the unfortunate incident of drowning happened at Khoda Colony belonged to MCD under the control of AAP,” the LG office said.

The 1,000-m drain was neither desilted nor covered, it claimed.

The total length of the drain is 1,350 m, out of which 1,000 m falls in the jurisdiction of MCD, which was handed over to it by DDA on April 17, 2023, the L-G office said.

AAP, however, claimed on Friday that the drain, which falls under the jurisdiction of MCD, transferred by DDA, ends 25-30 m away from the accident spot.

“The drain maintained by DDA is at the entrance of the market, covered by RCC slabs, had an open manhole in which the child and the mother fell,” the party said in a statement.

The L-G should stop “misleading” the public, and accept accountability and announce compensation for the bereaved family, it added.

A 22-year-old woman, Tanuja, and her three-year-old son, Priyansh, who had gone to a weekly market, drowned after they slipped into a drain in Khoda Colony in the Ghazipur area of east Delhi.