Gurgaon: BJP and Congress on Wednesday traded charges on who is to blame for the city’s chronic waterlogging problem, two days after many children had a harrowing time after their schoolbuses got stranded in heavy inundation after rain at Subhash Chowk and parents faced a harrowing time getting to them and pulling them out.Union minister and Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjit Singh said Gurgaon’s waterlogging problem “is rooted in the development that took place over old traditional drainage channels during the Congress era”.“These natural water pathways were meant to carry rainwater from the Aravalis towards the Yamuna and have since been disrupted. The short-term measures we are taking today are only band-aid solutions. The permanent answer is to recreate the old drainage routes through underground tunnels, just as we build metro tunnels, and restore the natural flow of water,” Inderjit added.BJP’s Bhiwani-Mahendergarh MP Rao Dharambir Singh, meanwhile, told a news channel no one could have anticipated the city’s growth in population, housing and vehicles six decades ago, referring to planning parameters the city has rapidly outgrown. Asked when the problems would be addressed, Dharambir referred to the new masterplans of Delhi, Haryana and Gurgaon and defended the administration’s efforts to manage waterlogging and traffic.While Inderjit is not wrong about destruction of the city’s drainage channels, the BJP govt faced questions from Congress about what it had done over 12 years since it came to office in the state in 2014.At a news conference in Delhi, Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda said, “The BJP govt and elected representatives in Gurgaon should apologise to residents for the city’s recurring civic problems, including waterlogging, poor sanitation and poor infrastructure.” He alleged large sums had been spent on drainage and sanitation without producing adequate results and sought accountability of urban development authorities GMDA and HSVP as well as MCG.Hooda also sought a CAG audit of the Rs 15,000 crore that he claimed had been collected from Gurgaon residents through EDC and IDC (external and internal development charge). He also demanded bigger central funding for expansion of Delhi Metro.State minister and Badshapur MLA Rao Narbir Singh acknowledged govt’s responsibility, saying BJP had been in office for more than a decade and could not simply claim the problem was not its fault. “Twelve years is a long time. We have to accept that whatever needed to be done has not been done to the extent it should have been,” he said, adding that he would work to ensure a permanent solution.