NEW DELHI: With assembly elections scheduled for later this year, the focus of leading political parties-Congress and BJP-has once again shifted to unauthorized colonies. The BJP, which is the ruling party in all three corporations, has expedited the regularization processso that a large number of unauthorized colonies are regularized before elections.

On Tuesday, South Delhi Municipal Corporation approved regularization plan of three unauthorized colonies - Rajouri Garden Extension, Meethapur and Badarpur. The corporation has close to 190 unauthorized colonies, which have been approved by the Delhi government for regularization, under its jurisdiction. Sources say, the BJP wants to finalize the plans of at least 50 colonies before the assembly elections.

"We don't want to delay the process. As and when we are getting requests for regularization from RWAs, we are processing it. There are a lot of problems in regularizing these colonies. In most colonies, the main problem is of right of way. People are not ready to demolish their properties. Also, there is no space left in these colonies to plan a community centre, park etc,'' said a senior South corporation official.

With Congress-led Delhi government approving 895 unauthorized colonies for regularization last year, the BJP is under pressure to expedite the regularization process. The North corporation has regularized one colony- Bhagwan Park- in May and East corporation has regularized three colonies in January this year.