Delhi: AAP to focus on work, no hurry to settle issue

While the Election Commission has been asked to hear the matter afresh, senior party leaders said that AAP’s strategy going forward is to focus on ground work, instead of court hearings and the EC.

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In the past two months since the disqualification, the AAP had been in campaign mode — albeit quietly.

Friday may have been about celebrations for AAP, but Delhi’s ruling party now has to get back to the drawing board.
While the Election Commission has been asked to hear the matter afresh, senior party leaders said that AAP’s strategy going forward is to focus on ground work, instead of court hearings and the EC.

“We have two years left before the government’s term expires. The court has not set any time period for EC to hear the matter and give us an oral hearing. We aren’t too keen on pushing the matter either. Twenty MLAs have to be given individual hearings. All of this will take time. Our energies will be on completing work that has been frozen in these 20 constituencies after the MLAs were disqualified,” a senior party leader said.

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In the past two months since the disqualification, the AAP had been in campaign mode — albeit quietly. Small public meetings, some of which the Chief Minister attended, were held across the city as the party prepared for bypolls in case it did not get a favourable outcome from court.

The disqualified MLAs, meanwhile, stuck to their stance that the post of parliamentary secretaries did not count as office of profit. “Had we taken something illegal, we would have been worried. In oral hearings, we will only stick to the truth. But the hearings are a long way off,” Laxmi Nagar MLA Nitin Tyagi said.

Leaving Kejriwal’s residence after Friday’s meeting, Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti said that if the matter is decided in a hurry again, it will go against the Centre. “The country goes to elections next year. If a similar order is passed again in a similar manner, it will have a negative effect on credibility of institutions. The EC had not even heard our arguments and had passed the order only on maintainability of the complaint,” he said.