Shades of ‘Emergency’ in Sheila blast: BJP

“A notice was served at my home at 10 pm on a Sunday. What is her intention behind sending the legal notice? Who is to decide whether the hoardings violated any Supreme Court-approved policy?” he asked.

Terming the pulling down of BJP’s hoardings that highlighted the power tariff issue as a ‘Tughlaqi order’,Gupta said he did not believe there was anything in the advertisement that should have elicited such a “hue and cry”.

“The government is trying to create an Emergency-like situation in the state against those who try to take up the cause of the common man and is trying to embroil us into legal tangles to divert attention from the main issues,” Gupta told reporters here.

Gupta also accused the government of siding with the power discoms while overlooking the cause of the common man.

“She has asked me to apologise,but on the contrary she herself should apologise to the people for siding with power companies at their cost,for sitting on the file of a terrorist (Afzal Guru) for four years and for failing to establish accountability over the issue of shortage of water and power supply in 11 years of her rule,” he said.

Gupta said BJP activists will tomorrow meet Lt Governor Tejendra Khanna and submit to him a “chargesheet” against the Chief Minister.

The BJP today held demonstrations at 15 different places in the capital to protest the holding back of the new power tariff for 2010-11.

“We held jan panchayats,demonstrations and chakka jams at different places,” he said.

“We want the government to stop acting as an agency of the power discoms and we want the new rates as recommended by the regulator to be implemented,” Gupta said.

The legal notice was slapped against him for defamation and for allegedly conspiring to malign the Chief Minister’s reputation and image.

The notice asked Gupta to to tender an unconditional public apology within three days and withdraw all false allegations levelled in advertisements on hoardings across the city.

Gupta,however,said no democratically elected government would respond to criticism in such a way.

“Crushing the voice of the common man seems to be the motive of this government,whose list of failures is long,” Gupta said.

“I am not taking the notice very seriously and my lawyers will file a response to it. We would,in fact,intensify our struggle against the government,” he said.

Gupta claimed there was anger and unrest among the people,hundreds of whom came out in BJP’s demonstrations to protest against the government’s policy on power tariff.

Delhi government last month forced Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission not to announce the new tariff order,apparently under pressure from discoms which had complained that their demand for increasing power tariff had not been considered by the regulator while finalising the new rates.

The DERC after receiving the government directive indicated that it had planned to cut down the tariff by 20 to 25 per cent as discoms would have a surplus of around Rs 4,000 crore if the existing tariff was not tinkered with.

Gupta also introduced a slum-dweller to the media,saying he had been slapped with an electricity bill of Rs 7.3 lakh and is running from pillar to post to seek redressal.

“There are hundreds of such people in the capital and many of them came with us in the protests today,” he said.

Gupta said if there was a legal issue or a violation of an SC-approved policy,why was it not served in writing.

“The CM and her brigade of officials are responsible for this (pulling down of hoardings) and action should be taken against them,” he said.