The Opposition in Delhi is awaiting “clarity” on the Election Commission's recommendation to disqualify 20 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs with seemingly much more eagerness than the legislators themselves.
Eyeing a comeback in the Assembly, after failing to win a single seat in the 2015 elections, the Congress has started its outreach to workers and potential candidates in the 20 constituencies.
At the Bharatiya Janata Party's Delhi headquarters, late-night deliberations over the issue revolved around a “dismissal of the incumbent government” with “another 16 AAP MLAs” expected to “meet the same fate”.
The BJP, according to sources, would depend upon a strategy based more on the alleged failures of the AAP government over its “three-plus years in power” instead of the party per se.
Workers’ meet
Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken said a meeting for workers of the constituencies was held on Friday. More workers’ conventions would be held in the constituencies.
“We have some very strong possible candidates like former MLAs A.K. Walia, Subhash Chopra and Tavinder Marwah. There may be new faces as well. The decision would be taken by the All-India Congress Committee, but we have already started working in the 20 constituencies,” said Mr. Maken.
On the other hand, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Vijender Gupta and his legislator colleagues Om Prakash Sharma, Manjinder Singh Sirsa and Jagdish Pradhan, in a joint statement, demanded that the President of India “take an immediate decision in the matter of 20 AAP MLAs.”
“It has already taken about three years for the case to reach the present stage. There should be no further delay in taking decision in the matter,” Mr. Gupta said.
BJP talks till midnight
According to a senior leader in the know about deliberations held at the BJP’s headquarters’ for two hours on Friday night, the party was awaiting the Election Commission's verdict on a complaint filed against 27 AAP MLAs on a separate petition seeking their disqualification for allegedly holding office of profit.
The petition, filed in June 2016 and forwarded to the Commission by Rashtrapati Bhavan in October that year, had sought the cancellation of the membership of the 27 MLAs over holding posts of chairpersons of Rogi Kalyan Samitis (RKSs) of different government hospitals in the Capital “without any sanctity of law”.
“The 27 MLAs included seven legislators against whom the commission is already considering a similar plea for holding the office of parliamentary secretaries. According to our calculation, if the next lot of AAP MLAs too is disqualified, it’s strength would be reduced to 30 from 66 in the 70-member (Delhi) Assembly bringing it six seats below the required 36-mark,” the leader pointed out.
Congress upbeat
Citing the percentage of votes the Congress got in the municipal corporations election in 2017, Mr. Maken said the party had a good chance of entering the Assembly. As per the Congress' analysis, the party got the highest percentage of total votes in Sadar Bazar (30.34%), Chandni Chowk (38.93%) and Mehrauli (25.27%).
In addition, Mr. Maken said the Congress had been either first or second in terms of vote share in the wards under nine of the 20 constituencies. Starting Monday, the Congress will be holding demonstrations against the AAP government, seeking the resignation of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
