New Delhi, March 7 (IANS) Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva on Saturday condemned Aam Aadmi Party’s city convenor Saurabh Bharadwaj for making a “baseless” allegation against the Delhi government over management of a Rs 1,000 crore loan.

Sachdeva said that for state governments, taking loans either from the Central government, the Reserve Bank of India, or from financial institutions or the open market with the RBI’s permission for long-term or short-term needs is a normal administrative practice.

Even the Arvind Kejriwal government sought loans from the Central government in 2020 and 2022, and the Atishi government had also sought a loan of Rs 10,000 crore from the National Small Savings Fund of the Government of India in November 2024, before the elections, to spend on electoral schemes.

After 11 years in power, the AAP government in Delhi left behind a debt of Rs 1,20,000 crore according to the Delhi government’s own figures for 2024–25.

The Delhi BJP chief said that while the Rekha Gupta government has proposed a loan of only Rs 1,000 crore in its first year in power for development works, the “AAP government” had proposed taking a loan of Rs 10,000 crore just two months before the elections for electoral freebies.

Sachdeva said that before commenting on the Delhi government, Bharadwaj should have also looked at the loan demands of his own government and the fact that his party’s Punjab government had taken loans worth Rs 50,000 crore in its very first year, and today, Punjab has a debt of more than Rs 4 lakh crore.

In another development, Delhi BJP Spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor has said that the statements made by Congress and Aam Aadmi Party leaders regarding the increase in cooking gas charges are politically motivated.

Leaders of the Congress and AAP, who engage in petty and opportunistic politics, should understand before speaking that nearly three-fourths of India’s gas supply comes from Central Asian countries.

Kapoor said that for quite some time, prices of gas and other fuels in the international market have remained unstable and have been continuously rising.

The situation has become even more concerning after the ongoing war in Central Asia, from where India receives three-fourths of its gas supply, he said.

The cost of ensuring the supply of gas coming from Central Asia through new routes has increased significantly, and the present increase in gas prices will only compensate for that cost, he added.

–IANS

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