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New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday pledged to make Delhi "one of the best cities" in the world if it won the forthcoming assembly elections.
In its manifesto released on Tuesay, the party made several promises including Rs20 million (Dh1.67 million) per acre of land acquired from farmers for development projects.
Coming down heavily on the Congress party, which has ruled the city-state for the past 10 years, the BJP's chief ministerial candidate, V.K. Malhotra, said his party was determined to give the Indian capital a thorough makeover it order to make it "beautiful, clean and full of greenery".
Without making direct reference to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray's tirade against people from north India in Maharashtra, the 32-page manifesto said the BJP was committed to all communities who have made Delhi their home.
"Delhi is [a] mini India. People from different states, speaking diverse languages and dialects, preserve their regional cultures in Delhi. Their languages, culture and regional characteristics would be preserved and respected," it said.
The manifesto vowed to regularise all unauthorised colonies - which are home to hundreds of thousands of the poorest of the poor - and provide them with civic amenities. The BJP pledged to end the city's perennial water and electricity scarcity.
Malhotra, who addressed reporters in the company of his senior party colleagues, said private power companies would be forced to change faulty electricity metres and if they fail to do so their agreements would be cancelled.
He also promised to review and modify the hugely controversial bus rapid transit (BRT) system, a road project, in south Delhi. The party promised to work for full statehood for Delhi, if elected.
Among the other promises the manifesto makes are giving one-time amnesty for regularising the unauthorised construction in houses and shops done till now, forcing out Bangladeshis staying illegally in Delhi, and setting up 50 new colleges.
The work of the Commonwealth Village would be completed six months before the 2010 Games start, he said. He also promised to make the Yamuna river clean and pollution free.
The party promised to establish a network of libraries and reading rooms, punishment for the culprits of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and provide relief to Kashmiri and Afghan Sikh migrants in the city.
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