Delhi Chief Minister drags President into fight
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has come out with a black eye just about every time he has dragged Prime Minister Narendra Modi into an unnecessary fight. Still, some of his early misadventures could have been attributed to political naiveté and his penchant for constant publicity. It was hoped that with time and experience, Kejriwal would realise that such confrontations only distracted from his governance agenda and disrupted what should ideally be a smooth relationship with the Centre. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. The latest episode in Kejriwal's spit-and-scoot politics vis-à-vis Modi is the controversy over Delhi's Parliamentary Secretaries.
On Monday, President Pranab Mukherjee declined to give his assent to the Delhi Members of legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Bill, 2015, which allow members of the Delhi's Assembly to simultaneously hold the post of Parliamentary Secretary. Such double dipping is currently prohibited. The President's rejection has put 21 Delhi MlAs, who are also Parliamentary Secretaries, at risk — which, of course, Kejriwal knowingly took when he went down this slippery slope last year — of being disqualified. But it is not the end of the road for Kejriwal and his MlAs.
The Government has the option of reviewing the President's objections and sending it back to him, while the Election Commission is also looking into the matter. The situation is fluid and there is space for Kejriwal manoeuver. However, instead of focusing on how best to present his rather shaky case to the authorities, Kejriwal has been raving and ranting against Modi, his Government and his party. And that's not all. In the process, Kejriwal has also demeaned, yet again, the lieutenant-Governor of Delhi, who he has accused of carrying out the Centre's subversive agenda in lieu of a vice presidential position, as well as reduced the august office of the President to that of a paper-pusher. This is unacceptable. It is one thing to exchange barbs in the heat and dust of politics, and quite another to insult the head of the state or for that matter any constitutional authority. Kejriwal has been so desperate to lash out at Modi, that when the office of the President and political propriety came in his way, he rode roughshod over one and all.
Besides, even if one were to consider Kejriwal's point, that the President's decision to reject his Bill was on the advice of the Modi Government, which in keeping with the practices of a parliamentary democracy, his larger argument against Modi and the BJP makes no sense. Kejriwal's contention that the BJP is threatened by his Aam Aadmi Party is laughable — as anyone who can count the number of seats the two parties have in Parliament or the numbers of members they have nationwide will tell you. The two parties may give each other competition in some places, such as in Punjab next year or in Delhi last year, but that hardly means that their political might and machineries are comparable.