No powers for transfer or posting, Centre doesn’t honour Supreme Court: Kejriwal

HYDERABAD: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal while thanking Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for his support of the AAP’s fight against the ordinance, urged him to join hands to defeat the ordinance when it comes before the Rajya Sabha.

Addressing a press conference here along with KCR and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann, Kejriwal said that the powers of the elected government of Delhi were taken away within three months of the AAP government coming to power.

“After eight years of our fight, we got those powers back by the grace of a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court. But the Narendra Modi government, through an ordinance, has once again betrayed the people of Delhi,” he said. However, Shiela Dixit, enjoyed full powers when she was CM, he recalled.

Pointing out that the Prime Minister had no respect for the Supreme Court, Kejriwal said that as a Chief Minister of a state, he couldn’t even decide on simple issues like transfers, postings, vigilance, and other incidental matters. “If the PM doesn’t respect the Supreme Court of the nation, that restored powers to the Delhi government, then why do we need Chief Ministers, let the PM and Governors rule the nation,” he quipped.

Kejriwal said that Narendra Modi had three ways of intimidating and disrupting state governments. “Either they will buy the MLAs, or break them with the help of ED or CBI to result in a bye-election or govern through ordinances,” he said.

Fight between the ‘selected’ and the ‘elected’

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, calling for a united fight to save democracy, said that the fight in Delhi was between the ‘selected’ Lieutenant Governor and the ‘elected’ Kejriwal government.

“In Punjab, the Governor doesn’t even give permission to hold Assembly budget session. We have to seek Apex court’s intervention to conduct the session,” the Punjab Chief Minister said.

He further added that the Punjab Governor even had reservations to pronounce the routine line ‘my government’ in his speech and was then made to read word for word by the Supreme Court. “This is the same situation in every non-BJP-ruled state. Raj Bhavans in each one of these states have become BJP party offices,” Mann said.

Mann further said that he had decided not to attend the Niti Aayog meeting of chief ministers as none of the requests made by his government were ever accepted. “Do we need to go there for a group photo?” he sought to know.

“India resembles a flower bouquet and it can’t be a garland of a single-coloured flower,” he said adding that political parties must protect this very multi-cultural fabric of the nation.