The Centre’s Bill on Delhi, passed by both houses of Parliament, is a clear attempt to provide overriding powers to the Lt Governor, while diminishing the role of the elected government. The move has already invited a lot of criticism from political parties, other than the BJP, and could lead to another round of confrontation between the Arvind Kejriwal government and the Narendra Modi dispensation. Kejriwal’s deputy, Manish Sisodia, has claimed that the Centre wanted to deprive the elected representatives the right to of govern the city and was envious of the successful model that is sought to be emulated by many other states as well.
The contentious issue has cropped up in the background of the inability of the BJP to capture power in Delhi since 1998. After 15 years Congress rule under Sheila Dikshit, the Aam Aadmi Party has occupied the leadership space relegating the BJP to second place in the past couple of Assembly elections. The logic for the Centre to bring in the new legislation is contrary to the spirit of the Supreme Court Judgement of 2018 which defined the Delhi government as that comprising of elected representatives and not of the Administrator or Lt Governor appointed by the Home Ministry. The Delhi Lt Governor already has enormous powers, and in any case under the Constitution, the control of the police and land use was always with the Union government. Therefore, the current move smacks of political agenda whose objective could be to curtail the rising ambitions of Kejriwal by furnishing the Lt Governor powers to veto any decision taken either by the Assembly or the council of ministers.
The first test of the matter would be when the new excise policy is implemented. The Kejriwal government has proposed several changes and if the Lt Governor decides to stay them, there is bound to be acrimony. S.K. Sharma, former Secretary of the Delhi Assembly, in his forthcoming book on Dr B.R. Ambedkar has observed that the founding fathers of the Constitution never wanted Delhi to have two governments which effectively implies that the Assembly was of no use and was only a burden on the taxpayer. This view is obviously not shared by majority of people, who believe that the passage of the Bill has ensured the defeat of the BJP in the forthcoming municipal elections.
Prior to the current Assembly, Delhi had a Metropolitan Council which was more of a debating chamber than a house for passing bills. Its deliberations were more of recommendatory nature and it had virtually no powers. The Metropolitan Council was replaced by the Assembly on the recommendations of the Sarkaria-Balakrishnan committee, which was formed by the V.P. Singh government to end multiplicity of authority in the capital. However, Balakrishnan being a bureaucrat ended up vesting more powers to the bureaucracy at the expense of elected representatives. Even after the Assembly came into being, the municipal corporation continued to have a greater say in the day-to-day affairs of the common people. Dikshit, who as the Chief Minister felt threatened by her own party colleagues such as the late Ram Babu Sharma, the undisputed leader of the corporation, suggested to the Centre to trifurcate the civic body. The point that now comes up after the current legislation is whether Delhiites should have the right to have a say in their own well-being.
This legislation contradicts the BJP’s earlier demand of granting full statehood to the capital, a matter with which its top leaders such as Madan Lal Khurana, Vijay Kumar Malhotra and Kedar Nath Sahani were identified. It is to be seen how this impending standoff would be resolved.