The Aam Aadmi Party lost 20 MLAs in Delhi in the office-of-profit case because the Centre wants to stop its “good work” for the next two years, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Monday in an open letter to the people of the city.
The Centre is “scared” that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is becoming popular not just in Delhi, but nationally as well, he claimed.
With the state now staring at bye-elections, all development work will have to stop as the model code of conduct will come into effect, Sisodia said. “The model code of conduct will again return ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, and soon after that, Delhi will go for Assembly elections again [2020],” Sisodia wrote in the letter.
“So, by imposing elections in these 20 constituencies, the Bharatiya Janata Party has stopped all development work for two years,” he wrote. “Also, holding elections in these 20 seats will be a waste of money.”
Sisodia accused the Centre of “leaving no stone unturned in making life difficult for the Aam Aadmi Party in the last three years”. He said the MLAs had been disqualified because the Centre had tried several other ways to stop the government’s work, but failed.
Sisodia’s open letter comes a day after President Ram Nath Kovind, based on the Election Commission’s recommendation, disqualified the 20 legislators. They were accused of holding offices of profit in the past as they were appointed parliamentary secretaries to ministers in the Delhi government in March 2015.
The Aam Aadmi Party has maintained that the move is political, and that it was done at the behest of the Central government.
In his letter, Sisodia wrote that the MLAs who were appointed parliamentary secretaries to ministers were performing specific tasks, such as monitoring schools and hospitals, without getting any pay. “These MLAs did this work with their own money because they were part of our movement and wanted to serve the country,” he wrote.
He asked how the posts could have been called “offices of profit” when there was no monetary gain. Sisodia accused the Election Commission of not hearing the legislators’ side before making its decision.
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