New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s direct attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the President’s rejection of its dual office bill, that could lead to the disqualification of 21 of its MLAs, has clearly not gone down well with the BJP. The party has now hit back at him for questioning the credibility of the President's office.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said Kejriwal was "frustrated" that his flying ambition has crash-landed and asked him not to make the President's decision a "political issue".
“This is a classic case of crash landing of 'Udta' ambition of AAP,” Patra said.
BJP accused him of being "obsessed" about attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Office of the President of India and the Election Commission are independent institutions with great credibility. You (Kejriwal) have certain political ambitions, rightly so under a democratic system, but for god's sake don't demean the credibility of the President of India because in the end you are demeaning the democracy of this country," Patra told reporters at the party headquarters here.
Kejriwal came down heavily upon PM Modi after President Pranab Mukherjee rejected state government’s bill aimed to protect 21 party legislators, who were appointed as parliamentary secretaries, from the prospect of disqualification.
Underlining that his MLAs were working for different public welfare departments without any remuneration, the Delhi CM said “If an MLA is working without any perk and looking after schools, hospitals, water supply or power supply, why Modi ji has problem with that?, Kejriwal asked.
“Neither he works nor let us work. Modiji says that Sonia Gandhi doesn’t let the Parliament function because she can't digest the defeat, I want to say that Modi ji you are not letting us work because you are unable to digest defeat in Delhi,” AAP chief added.
“Haryana has Parliamentary secretaries, Nagaland has 24, Himachal Pradesh has 6, Rajasthan has five, Punjab has 24, Gujarat has five, Puducheery and West Bengal also have Parliamentary secretaries,” Delhi CM said, defending the decision to appoint MLAs as parliament secretaries.
Asked about the Prime Minister's role in the process as the bill has been turned down by the President and not him, Kejriwal said, "President does not take any decision. Probably the file doesn't even go to him. The decision is taken by the government and Home Ministry decided this."
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday rejected a Bill passed by the Delhi government aimed at retrospectively exempting the appointment of 21 AAP MLAs as parliamentary secretaries, putting a question mark on their membership.
The Indian Constitution prohibits legislators from holding an office that would allow them to benefit financially. The Delhi Government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997.
Through the Bill, the AAP government wanted "retrospective" exemption for the parliamentary secretaries from disqualification provisions. The Bill was forwarded by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to the Centre, which in turn was sent to the President with its comments.
After examining the issue, the President has not given his assent to the Bill, official sources said today. President’s decision was made on the basis of the recommendations of the Election Commission.
Petitions have been filed with the President seeking disqualification of these MLAs on the ground that they occupied office of profit violating constitutional provisions. Acting as a quasi judicial body, the Election Commission to whom the President referred the issue, had issued notices to the 21 MLAs asking them to explain how their appointment as parliamentary secretaries does not fall under office of profit and why their Assembly membership should not be cancelled.
In their response to the poll body, the MLAs had said that parliamentary secretary is a post without any remuneration or power. A senior party functionary maintained that there was no "pecuniary benefit" associated with the post.
The govt maintains, "These parliamentary secretaries will not be eligible any remuneration or any perks of any kind, from the government- meaning no burden on exchequer."
On March 13, 2015, Kejriwal had passed an order appointing the 21 party MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries.
After the rejection of the bill, sword of disqualification hangs over the heads of MLAs. Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Adarsh Shastri, Madan Lal, Charan Goel, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Jarnail Singh and Rajesh Gupta are among the MLAs that were appointed Parliamentary Secretaries.
The government does not face danger of being ousted as 67 seats of the 70-member assembly are occupied by AAP. However, Delhi will see one of the biggest bypolls ever with 21 seats falling vacant.
The bypoll will provide a chance for BJP to improve its tally in the assembly. Congress, on the other hand, will have an opportunity to open its account.
