Half-hearted Cong repeats support pledge ‘for now'
Arvind Kejriwal, who led the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to a spectacular victory in December 4 Assembly election ending Congress' 15-year rule, will now take oath as Delhi's seventh Chief Minister on Saturday at the historic Ramlila Maidan.
The Magsaysay Award winner and six other AAP MlAs — Manish Sisodia, Rakhi Birla, Somnath Bharti, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Girish Soni and Satendra Jain — will be sworn in at 12 noon. Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Santosh Hegde and all those associated with the anti-corruption movement will be invited to attend the function. The date of the swearing-in ceremony was finalised at a meeting between Kejriwal and Chief Secretary DM Spolia on Wednesday.
Kejriwal has been asked to prove his majority in the Assembly by January 3. Kejriwal had met the l-G on Monday and staked claim to form a government with the outside support from the Congress. Following this, Jung had sent a proposal to President Pranab Mukherjee, who approved the proposal on Tuesday and left it to the l-G to finalise the date for swearing-in ceremony in consultation with the CM-designate. A Press release issued by the Delhi Government said the President has directed that Kejriwal be asked to prove his majority on the floor of the House within seven days from the date on which he takes oath of office.
The AAP chief denied any rift within the party on the issue of cabinet berth. He indicated that immediately after assuming charge a number of announcements will be made on fulfilling key promises like reducing power tariff and ordering audit of the private power distribution companies.
“We will work on the supply of water within 24 hours. Every colony has its own problems. We are also working on the reduction in power tariff,” Kejriwal said. The AAP leader reiterated that his party has no alliance or coalition with anyone.
Meanwhile, newly-appointed Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh said that the AAP should not resort to political vendetta. “If the AAP tries to do things with vendetta, then definitely we will raise our voice. But we are not reviewing our support to the AAP,” he said.
Wary of AAP Government’s actions, some Delhi Congress leaders have started to pressurise the party high command to reconsider support to Kejriwal. Former Transport Minister Ramakant Goswami and senior Congress leader Naseeb Singh are pitching for withdrawal of support. However, five Congress MlAs — Mateen Ahmed, Prahlad Singh Sawhney, Hasan Ahmed, Devendra Yadav and Asid Mohammed — decided to go ahead with the party’s decision to support the AAP government.
When asked, Mateen Ahmed said that now the high command has decided to extend the support, they should go ahead. If they withdraw at this stage, it would give a wrong signal. “The decision of high command is supreme,” he said.
Congress spokesperson and MP from East Delhi Sandeep Dikshit made it clear that there was no rethink on support to the AAP government. “If AAP is able to maintain the same level of transparency, then the Congress is ready to work with the AAP government,” he said.