Kejriwal is trying to push the Union Govt into the corner over ‘misuse of powers’
The bad blood between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government in Delhi and the BJP-led Union Government continues. Days after Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain was arrested and remanded in the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) custody till June 9, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said Jain should be awarded the Padma Vibhushan for his ‘mohalla clinics’ model that treats people free of cost. Taking his attack on the BJP leadership for its “misuse” of Central agencies a notch higher, he is now claiming that his deputy Manish Sisodia was being framed in a hales case and likely to be the next Minister to face arrest. Kejriwal even dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to arrest and throw the entire Delhi Cabinet members “in jail together” so that all the cases are investigated at one go and “…then we can return to work”. Interestingly, the Chief Minister had made a similar ‘prediction’ back in January for Satyendar Jain, who has since been arrested. There are also indications that no love has still been lost between the State and Union Governments with regard to the latter’s appointee in the city as the administrative head.
Barely a week after Vinai Kumar Saxena took charge as the L-G, the AAP Government accused him of “attacking Delhi’s constitutional sanctity” and appealed to him not to disrupt Delhi’s constitutional framework. The BJP, however, hit back saying that the AAP was raking up the issue to divert the public’s attention from its “tainted” Delhi Minister. This is the first tiff between AAP and the L-G. But bitter confrontations between the AAP Government and Lt Governors are not new to Delhi. Even on earlier occasions, the Delhi Government had had frequent run-ins with former L-G Anil Baijal, a 1969-batch IAS officer. The most noticeable face-offs involving the two included the tussle over setting up a committee to look into the alleged ‘medical oxygen scarcity’ deaths during the brutal second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then there were long-lasting differences on the doorstep delivery of ration scheme and over appointing special public prosecutors in cases related to violence during the tractor rally on Republic Day and the northeast Delhi riots. The lesson here is that development works in the Capital have fallen victim to the ego clash between the AAP and the BJP, which clearly shouldn’t be the case.
