Kejriwal jibe in letter to L-G: ‘PM also campaigns for his party’

Responding to the multiple communication received from the CM, the L-G Monday stated, “I am in receipt of several letters from you over the past few days. …I would like to express my appreciation for the fact that you have started taking governance in the city seriously, and gotten into intricacies of Constitutional provisions, Statutes and Acts that outline multi-layered scheme of administration in… Delhi.”

He said, “The provisions governing administration in Delhi emanate out of serious deliberations in the Constituent Assembly, State Reorganisation Commission and Parliament of India, apart from having been clearly interpreted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court…on several occasions.”

The L-G called for a meeting with the CM, and said, “While the same is amply clear for any practitioner of statecraft, lawyer, scholar as indeed a common citizen concerned with it, for sake of ample clarity, I would like to invite you for a meeting where we could discuss issues threadbare.”

“We used to meet regularly till October 2022, where after you expressed your inability to meet due to your preoccupation with State Assembly and Municipal Elections,” said the LG.

“Now, that the same is over, it will be in the fitness of things that such meetings are resumed in the interest of consciously deliberative and conflict-free governance… in the interest of its people. Your office may accordingly fix up any mutually convenient date for a meeting, that I am sure will lead to broader clarity,” read the letter.

Responding to the L-G following his letter, the CM said, “AAP is a national party and as its national convenor, I have to attend to elections campaigns… Hon’ble Prime Minister, Hon’ble Home Minister and many BJP Chief Ministers like Yogi Adityanath ji, Shivraj Singh ji, Pushkar Dhami ji etc were also campaigning for their party at that time in Gujarat and Delhi.” He also thanked the L-G for the invite and assured him of his participation.

“I would urge you to kindly make your stand on those issues public. When your good self unilaterally appointed 10 aldermen, presiding officer and Haj Committee bypassing elected government and directly getting officers to issue necessary notifications, there was strong public criticism,” Kejriwal said, alleging that L-G office had admitted to having taken these actions “unilaterally bypassing government.”

“Sir, in my letter on the same date, which was made public to take this debate forward, I had requested you to kindly make your stand public whether this was your position that from now onwards, on all those subjects where the law uses the words “Administrator/L-G”, elected government would be bypassed/ignored and Hon’ble L-G would directly deal with officers and directly run those departments?” he further asked.

For instance, Kejriwal asked, since all laws and Acts related to electricity, health, water, and education defined the government as “Administrator/L-G”, did it mean that all parent departments providing these services would be administered directly by the L-G. “Then what would the elected government do, sir? Won’t that be contrary to all SC judgements where it has been repeatedly said L-G is bound by aid and advice of Council of Ministers on all transferred subjects?” he wrote. “Whereas we could discuss all these issues privately over tea, however, these questions are very critical for the future of Delhi and the whole country. Therefore, a public discussion on this issue will be useful.” Kejriwal added.