Aam Aadmi Party says officers' tour to Prime Minister's state Gujarat a bad idea

NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party has objected to a team of senior Delhi government officials travelling to Gujarat to study the state's development model. The party says that at a time when the city is facing power cuts and water shortage, senior officials are needed here.

"The lieutenant governor's decision to send top bureaucrats to study the much-hyped and faulty Gujarat model of development has been taken at a wrong time. It will merely serve as a propaganda tool for the particular model of development, which has so far only been used for furthering the political agenda of a particular political party," said AAP.

Before the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal had travelled to Gujarat to ostensibly see "what this model of development is which BJP keeps talking about".

Kejriwal then went on to pick several holes in the model, claiming that the cleaning up of the Sabarmati river was a failure. He also referred to a report by Centre for Science and Environment which said that the Sabarmati is the third most polluted river in the country.

"Last month, AAP volunteers had collected water samples from three different points in the Sabarmati and tests showed voluminous presence of hazardous chemicals. The volume of chemical oxygen demand was 826 and 1,950 respectively for two samples against the permissible limit of 30...the total dissolved solid level was 13,500 against the permissible 2,000," said a party source.

On the issue of solar power, the party said that in principle it supports the use and promotion of solar power but asked whether "such a decision, which will involve huge initial investment costs, be taken in the absence of an elected government in Delhi".