The political tussle over the Centre’s May 21 notification granting absolute powers to the Lieutenant-Governor was visible in the Delhi Assembly on the first day of its specially-convened session on Tuesday, with the allegations flying thick and fast and three opposition BJP MLAs coming under all-round attack.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia moved a resolution questioning the constitutional validity of the notification, saying it amounted to an insult of the elected government which had assumed power in the Capital after getting the ‘most popular mandate’.
Mr. Sisodia said the notification, which was an encroachment upon the powers of the Assembly, could not be justified by any stretch of imagination. “It is like saying that since the Delhi Government does not have control over sources of water, it cannot supply water to the city,” he said.
About a dozen MLAs, who took part in the debate over the resolution, criticised the Centre as well as L-G Najeeb Jung for creating the impasse and demanded full statehood for Delhi.
There were several occasions when the three BJP MLAs stood up and took exception to the use of ‘offence words’ against Constitutional functionaries.
For instance, the impasse was, according to Rajouri Garden MLA Jarnail Singh a result of ‘the frustration of a tyrant’. AAP MLA from Gandhi Nagar Anil Kumar Bajpai compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Hitler.
This was followed by Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba’s comment on the ‘camaraderie between the L-G and the Prime Minister’, followed by the statement, “Everyone knows that the Ambanis pumped a lot of money into the BJP’s (Lok Sabha) election campaign.” This elicited a sharp reaction from Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta.
BJP MLA Om Prakash Sharma was marshalled out of the House when he made some critical remarks against Speaker Ram Niwas Goel. The Speaker ordered that Mr. Sharma’s remarks be expunged from the records of Assembly proceedings.
Mr. Gupta, in a bid to ‘explain’ the Centre’s stand, said the BJP-led government had merely ‘clarified the jurisdiction of the Delhi Government’ through successive notifications issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) over the last fortnight.
