Chandigarh: There was a round of allegations and counter-allegations in the public hearing of JERC

Chandigarh: Political drama was witnessed today during the public hearing organised by the Joint Regulatory Electricity Commission (JERC) to seek suggestions from stakeholders on revision of electricity rates. Allegations and counter-allegations started from BJP and Congress-AAP during the public hearing. Will not let electricity rates increase: AAP The local unit of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said that if BJP forcibly increases electricity rates through UT administration, then party workers will take to the streets to protest against it. He said that the administration will be forced to roll back the rates. Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board Chairman and city AAP co-incharge SS Ahluwalia said that BJP is putting additional burden on the city dwellers through the administration. He said that the price of water increased and now the price of electricity is being increased. It all started when a Congress leader stood up and demanded that a provision be made to give 300 units of free electricity to the economically backward people of the city. Objecting to the demand, the BJP leaders said if the AAP-Congress cannot fulfil their poll promises, why did they make unrealistic election promises? When both the parties were accusing each other, the presiding officer abruptly ended the hearing and left. In a post on X (earlier known as Twitter), Manish Tewari said: “Some constitutionally challenged leaders of the BJP tried to create unnecessary ruckus about my alleged absence in the JERC public hearing to divert attention from the crucial question of 19 per cent arbitrary tariff hike in power tariff.” “I have deliberately refrained from attending any official meeting till I formally took the oath of office,” he said. He also said, “I ask how many JERC hearings did Kirron Kher attend in 10 years? It is not mandatory for MPs to do so. They can always put their objections in writing. In any case, our institutional view on arbitrary tariff hike was represented by our allies from Congress and AAP.” Tiwari said the engineering department comes under the Chandigarh Administration, which is run by the Home Ministry. If he is so concerned, he can demand his government to withdraw the power hike proposal. On the other hand, BJP councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu said Tiwari again tried to divert attention from the issue by giving a constitutional lecture. “Being an elected MP, he cannot be stopped from attending the JERC session. According to him, he had recently attended the MC meeting informally, so he should have done the same today as well,” he said. “Tiwari had appealed to everyone to attend this hearing, but he remained absent. If Tiwari is so concerned about the residents of the city, he should have attended today’s meeting. Even the representatives of the Congress and AAP party only made political statements, which disrupted the proceedings and the hearing had to be called off. The mayor did not even feel like attending the session. The Congress and AAP deliberately vitiated the atmosphere by making political statements, the sole purpose of which was to disrupt the proceedings and then blame the Central government,” he said.