Minister says BJP behind stir

New Delhi: Even as Delhi’s commuters wrestled with cussed auto drivers and cabbies on Tuesday, Delhi transport minister Satyendar Jain glibly dubbed the transport strike as a BJP-sponsored event and accused Delhi Police of doing little to stop the auto drivers from harassing the public.
“It is sponsored goonda-gardi by BJP,” the minister said. Jain also claimed that he had spoken to Delhi police commissioner Alok Verma on Monday about deploying additional men at transport hubs like bus stands.They were also to protect autorickshaw drivers who wanted to ply their vehicles in defiance of the strike call. “Though I sent people from the enforcement unit of the transport department, many autorickshaws didn’t risk the threat of violence,” added Jain.
Jain, whose party believes it has a big support among autorickshaw drivers, maintained that the BJP-affiliated unions had coerced them into staying off the roads. “Why should an autowalla go on strike when he knows people will then opt for an Ola or a Uber cab?” argued the minister.
Asked why the Delhi government hadn’t yet come out with a policy to regulate the app-based taxi services, Jain responded, “We can’t stop taxi aggregators from plying. It is the Centre that has to draw up a policy for taxi aggregators to be implemented across the country.” Jain dismissed the demands of the striking unions to terminate the services of taxi aggregators and e-rickshaws as impossible to meet. “Next they will say, ‘Stop the Metro’,” quipped Jain.
The minister also said Delhi Police had been lax in acting against the striking auto drivers because they were affiliated to BJP unions.
“Refusing to take commuters should invite police action, but why did the police not arresting such drivers?” asked Jain. “If Delhi Police was under the state government, we would have ensured that the strike didn’t take place.”
To tackle the shortfall on the day of the strike, the Delhi government put 300 more buses on the roads. The buses, mostly diverted from interstate bus routes, were in addition to the extra vehicles that DTC was running on selected routes, including roads connecting railway stations, airport and important bus terminals.
The strike, however, saw Delhi Metro ridership being bumped up positively. While the ridership on Monday was 23.10 lakh, it was 23.48 lakh till 8pm on Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, the ridership had been significantly lower at 22.10 lakh.