Introduction
The “Catch Your MLA” online service is a community-driven service introduced and run by Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and founder of the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation in New Delhi. This service aims to help Delhi citizens hold their Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) accountable, as Delhi has become a veritable hell under the current government of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
As a new legislation is expected to take away administrative powers from the Kejriwal government and make the Lt. Governor (LG) of Delhi, the head of the government, the negligence of MLAs is likely to increase. And the misery of Delhi citizens is not going to diminish.
Today, the people of Delhi are almost buried under rampant corruption, lethal pollution, administrative conflicts, and bureaucratic lethargy. Chief minister Kejriwal and other Delhi MLAs are virtually absconding while all this disaster is taking place in the city-state. The “Catch Your MLA” service will help Delhi residents file their grievances which will be made available online on RMN News Service so that the carelessness of MLAs is exposed publicly to fix their accountability.
This service is an extension to the “Appeal for Open Government in Delhi” through which I have urged chief minister Kejriwal to introduce an “Open Government” by publicly disclosing the details personal, performance, financial, and crime of Delhi MLAs on a dedicated website. This is particularly important in Delhi where nearly 60% of the 70 MLAs have serious criminal records.
The “Catch Your MLA” online service will also supplement the “Clean House” anti-corruption online service that I have been running in Delhi for the past about 4 years. The “Clean House” service runs as a community court to report about crime and corruption happening in Delhi’s cooperative group housing societies (CGHS) where millions of people live.
Crime and Corruption in Delhi
Today, there is no proper record of the public money that the Delhi Government collects and spends. As an election strategy, Kejriwal squanders huge public money by giving free electricity, water, bus travel, etc. to Delhi residents.
Instead of empowering people with proper education, he is creating a dependent society which can never help a country progress because most people will live only
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on government dole instead of earning their livelihood gracefully. By giving freebies, Kejriwal treats people like beggars.
Despite his claims, Kejriwal could not do anything to improve the education standards – particularly in Delhi schools – which are going from bad to worse. Kejriwal and his colleagues tell lies about their performance in Delhi schools, while the education quality in these schools is so bad that it cannot equip any student to compete in the contemporary job market.
Reports of Crime and Corruption in Delhi
Bureaucratic Corruption Lethal Pollution
Humanitarian Crisis Coronavirus Disaster
Education Crisis
Illegal Construction
Housing Crimes
Lack of Transparency Inefficient Working
The Kejriwal government also tells lies about the community health care centers. While Kejriwal goes gaga over the hyped performance of his Mohalla Clinics, people in Delhi complain about the uselessness of such a flawed health care concept. Like most politicians in India, Kejriwal’s group Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been allegedly involved in a number of corruption cases and other criminal activities.
For example, a former Delhi chief secretary Aanshu Prakash had filed a police complaint alleging that a couple of AAP MLAs had beaten him at the behest of Kejriwal. He was particularly apprehensive because politicians in Kejriwal’s AAP are mostly uneducated goons.
As some of Kejriwal’s party members are apparently being bribed, they are allowing massive corruption in Delhi’s Cooperative Group Housing Societies (CGHS) where millions of people live. Despite multiple complaints from the aggrieved residents, Kejriwal has not taken any steps to stop crime and corruption in the city’s group housing societies which are supposed to be controlled by the Delhi Government.
As a result of Kejriwal’s inaction, a number of Delhi bureaucrats are working in connivance with local criminals who operate as the management committee (MC) members of housing societies and builders’ mafia to extort money from residents.
Almost 60% of Delhi’s residents are so poor that they cannot pay bribes to the government officials. In recent years, therefore, the corrupt bureaucrats and politicians have systematically created a citywide criminal enterprise across the affluent group housing complexes which have become dens of crime and
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corruption. It is estimated that corruption worth hundreds of crores of rupees happens every year in group housing societies controlled by the Delhi Government.
Complaints Against Delhi MLAs
While there are multiple complaints of corruption against AAP legislators, the party decided to defy the notice from Delhi’s anti-corruption body Lokayukta which had asked AAP MLAs to reveal the details of their assets.
Earlier, the Shunglu Committee set up by the government found a number of irregularities including illegal appointments, abuse of power, and nepotism in the functioning of Kejriwal’s AAP government. But with his abusive rhetoric against such findings, Kejriwal succeeded in getting these cases hushed up.
While Kejriwal is hiding his failures in Delhi, most traditional media outlets (newspapers and TV channels) are complicit in Kejriwal’s deception and they praise his efforts baselessly.
In all probability, the Kejriwal government is bribing these dishonest media companies with heavy advertisements that promote Kejriwal and his party. Therefore, the crooked journalists say what Kejriwal asks them to say – and it is all falsehood while millions of people are suffering in Delhi.
Since most of the 30 million people in Delhi are uneducated and gullible, they easily get cheated by the exaggerated hype that Kejriwal spreads through advertisements and false editorial reports. Thus, they vote for his party. In his modus operandi, Kejriwal often blames the Lt. Governor (LG) of Delhi for his own failures, although the LG office is equally notorious for its inefficiency and carelessness.
Now there is an urgent need to stop this culture of corruption and negligence in which MLAs and other government functionaries commit crimes with impunity.
With the objective to ensure honesty in governance, the “Catch Your MLA” service encourages local residents to publicly complain against the corrupt and negligent MLAs in their areas.
I had started and managed a similar “Catch Your MLA” service in Punjab where I was working a few years ago. The media reports on the service in Punjab are given below.
How it Works
The “Catch Your MLA” service allows Delhi residents to fill in a simple online form to provide details of an MLA’s corruption or negligence in a particular area. The complainant can also upload the documents or audio / video files related to their
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grievance. After studying the initial details, RMN News Service will contact the complainant to get more information, if required.
Online Form for Catch Your MLA Service in Delhi
With the information provided by the complainant, RMN News Service will contact the MLA to get their response on the complaint. The complaint, MLA’s response (if any), and the progress of the case will be made available publicly through the “Catch Your MLA” editorial section under the RMN News Service.
You can click here to check out or fill in the online form.
Volunteers: RMN News Service is looking for volunteers who can coordinate with Delhi residents to collect their complaints against MLAs and extend more support to them.
The photographs that depict catastrophic calamity in Delhi because of the Kejriwal government’s failures are given below. (Photos by Rakesh Raman / RMN News Service)
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Dirty Delhi: Starved cows eating household hazardous waste near a housing colony of Delhi. The city is full of such dirty sites.
A pollution scene in New Delhi which is the most polluted national capital in the world.
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Poverty, pollution, sickness, and hunger are killing people of Delhi.
Political and bureaucratic corruption is the main cause of broken roads in Delhi.
Students of a government school in Delhi cross high walls and barbed wires to abscond from the school. School education is bad and teachers have no control on students.
Such unhygienic sites full of household waste are spreading multiple diseases in Delhi while the healthcare system has collapsed
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Delhi has become a stinking hell because of massive bureaucratic and political corruption in Kejriwal's government.
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Arvind Kejriwal’s Mohalla Clinics are so sick that they need to be cured.
Kejriwal's group often defaces the city walls for their own publicity and to mislead the people of Delhi with false sloganeering.
Office of the Registrar Cooperative Societies (RCS) of Delhi Government, which is among the most corrupt departments of India. The RCS officials collude with criminals to spread crime and corruption in Delhi's housing societies where millions of people are suffering.
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Some of the media reports on the “Catch Your MLA” service that I had launched and managed in Punjab are given below.
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About Rakesh Raman
Rakesh Raman is a national award-winning journalist and founder of the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation. Besides working at senior editorial positions with leading media companies, he was writing an exclusive edit-page column regularly for The Financial Express (a daily business newspaper of The Indian Express Group).
Nowadays, for the past more than 10 years, he has been running his own global news services on multiple news sites covering subjects such as politics, technology, education, and entertainment. He also runs various environment protection, education awareness, and anti-corruption campaigns, and publishes research reports on different subjects.
He runs an exclusive information service on elections and politics in the U.S. Recently, he has also launched “Rural Resistance: Protests by Farmers” editorial section to cover the agricultural reforms and ongoing farmers’ protests in India.
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He runs a community-driven anti-corruption social service “Clean House” to help the suffering residents of Delhi raise their voice against the growing corruption and injustice in housing societies where millions of people live. He has also formed an environment protection group called Green Group in Delhi.
He has created a new governance model for various state governments in India to help them introduce “Open Government” in their states by publicly disclosing and updating the personal, performance, financial, and crime details of their MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly). He creates and distributes a number of digital publications on different subjects such as coronavirus, environment, agriculture, corruption and transparency, law and justice, and economic and political upheavals in different parts of the world.
He had set up and managed a free school for deserving children for 5 years during 2015-2019 to impart modern education to poor children at the J.J. Colony of Dwarka, Sector 3, New Delhi. Now, after the coronavirus containment, he is again planning to start such schools for poor and disadvantaged children. He has announced his candidacy for UN Secretary-General post.
He has been facing increasing threats including death threats for his editorial and anti-corruption work. Recently, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India issued a notice to the Commissioner of Delhi Police to protect him and his rights as a journalist. However, the threats to him are increasing.
He had also been associated with the United Nations (UN) through the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) as a digital media expert to help businesses use technology for brand marketing and business development. Click here to see his work.
DISCLOSURE: I am an independent journalist and do not belong to any political party. My editorial objectivity and aversion to the flawed political system in India can be assessed from the fact that I have not voted in any Indian election during the past more than 2 decades. I strongly believe that all political parties in India are full of dishonest politicians who are hell bent to further destroy the country which exists merely as an underdeveloped piece of land on the face of the earth.
Contact
Rakesh Raman
Editor, RMN News Service [ Website ]
Founder, RMN Foundation [ Website ] 463, DPS Apts., Plot No. 16
Sector 4, Dwarka, Phase I, New Delhi 110 078, INDIA. Mobile: 9810319059 | Contact by Email
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