Won't let them break your homes again: Rahul to Shakur Basti dwellers

Rahul Gandhi on Monday attacked the Centre and Kejriwal government over the razing of a slum cluster by railways where a baby died, as he visited the site in Shakur Basti area of West Delhi and assured the homeless that he will fight their “battle”.

“Whenever a slum is about to be demolished, call Rahul Gandhi. He won’t let this happen.

“We will try to help you. As you know we are not in the government, it is Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s government. But we will try to protect you, we will fight your battle,” the Congress vice president told the slum dwellers.

Gandhi said he will raise the issue in Parliament.

“Modi sarkar and Kejriwal sarkar are responsible for what has happened. But now they are busy blaming each other. Instead they should provide help to the people who have been displaced and rehabilitate them,” Gandhi said on Twitter.

A fresh confrontation erupted between the Arvind Kejriwal government and the Centre over the death of a six-month-old infant girl at the slum cluster at West Delhi’s Shakurbasti Railway Colony that was demolished by the Railways on Sunday.

The AAP government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the demolition drive and death of the six-month girl though the Railways has said that the incident had “nothing to do with removal of encroachments”.

Police had said prima facie the baby died due to suffocation after a heap of clothes fell on it when the parents were preparing to move out of the jhuggi and hence no case was registered.

The Railways have been insisting that the baby died two hours before the demolition started at 12 pm on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hit out at Rahul for questioning the Aam Aadmi Party’s protest against the demolition, saying that he was still a ‘child’ in politics.

“Rahul Gandhi is still a child. I don’t think his party has told him that that Indian Railways comes the Centre and not the Delhi government,” Kejriwal tweeted.

Rahul had demanded to know the reason behind AAP’s ‘dharna’ since they were the ruling power in Delhi.

Photograph: Rahul Gandhi interacts with the slum dwellers of Shakur Basti. Photograph: @officeofRG/Twitter