The Delhi Assembly is all set to witness intense debate and discussions during its two-day session beginning Tuesday on the Union Home Ministry notification granting absolute powers to lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung in transfer and postings of IAS and super scale DANICS officials in the national Capital.
The notification, which had stirred up a hornet’s nest with political parties trading barbs over demarcation of powers between the AAP and the l-G, will be presented before the House for discussion and appropriate directions. The Ministry had made it amply clear that the l-G had absolute powers on matters related to the police, land and public order. But the AAP Government had opposed it tooth and nail saying that the Centre was trying to make it a toothless entity as it was trying to control Delhi through the l-G’s office.
In a shot in the arm for the Kejriwal Government, the Delhi High Court has termed as “suspect” the Centre’s recent notification barring Delhi Government’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) from acting against its officers in criminal offences and held that the l-G cannot act in his discretion. The High Court noted that lieutenant Governor of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) is bound to act upon the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers who are directly elected by the citizens of Delhi and the Centre’s “executive fiat” siding with him is “suspect”. This is perhaps not the first occasion when there has been a confrontation between the Centre and the Delhi Government over control of key bodies in the city. All the major political parties, the BJP, the Congress and the AAP, had been in their respective manifestos promising to “grant” full statehood to the city.
First it was during the then BJP Chief Minister Madan lal Khurana who had held a session on granting full statehood to Delhi way back in 1990s. After Khurana, it was his successor Sahib Singh Verma who had demanded full statehood status to Delhi. Even former Congress Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had raised a strong pitch for full statehood with the Centre, but all in vain. A Bill for granting full statehood to Delhi has even lapsed in the Parliament. AAP alleged that the BJP had promised both in the 2013 Delhi Assembly manifesto and 2014 general election to grant full statehood to Delhi, but yet no decision has been taken by the current dispensation.
“The BJP’s eagerness to accord full statehood to Delhi is established further from the fact that with BJP led coalition in power, it drafted the legislative Bill under the guidance of its stalwarts like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and lal Krishna Advani and presented it to the Parliament,” the party said in a statement. It added that more than one Standing Committee report have been presented, one of it even suggesting particularly that the Traffic Police in Delhi should be in direct control of the State Government. A well-placed source said that AAP MlAs were busy through the day reading the legal opinions on the Home Ministry notification and the resolutions, which had been moved in the past over the grant of full statehood to the city. About 24 MlAs are likely to state their views on the notification on Tuesday.