Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday claimed that Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena told him during a meeting that the Bharatiya Janata Party won 104 seats in the civic polls because of him, NDTV reported.
Addressing the Delhi Assembly, the Aam Aadmi Party chief also said that Saxena told him that the BJP would not have won even 20 Municipal Corporation of Delhi seats without the lieutenant governor’s help. Moreover, Saxena was working to help the BJP win all the seven seats in Delhi in the 2024 general elections, Kejriwal claimed.
The chief minister then criticised Saxena for allegedly stalling a proposal to send government school teachers for training to Finland. The lieutenant governor, however, has maintained he has not rejected the government’s proposal.
“Not even my teachers checked my homework as the LG scrutinises my files,” Kejriwal said in the Assembly. “The LG is not my headmaster. People have elected me as chief minister.”
Kejriwal has written to the lieutenant governor’s multiple times over the last few weeks, asking him to detail what he thinks the powers of Raj Niwas are.
A 2018 verdict by the Supreme Court had underlined that Delhi’s elected government exercises control over all subjects in the city except three – land, police and public order. These three are known as reserved subjects and controlled by the Centre. In other matters, the lieutenant governor will have to act on the aid and advice of the council of ministers, the court had ruled.
Addressing the Delhi Assembly, the chief minister alleged that Saxena “suffered from a feudal mindset” and does not want the poor children in the national capital to get good education.
“Who is LG, where has he come from?” the chief minister asked. “Nothing is permanent in life. We may be in power at the Centre tomorrow, with our LG. Our government will not harass people.”
The AAP chief alleged that the BJP does not want teachers of state-run schools to visit Finland. “Many MPs of BJP and their children have studied in foreign countries, if we want to provide better education to children of poor, then who are they to stop?” he continued.
Later, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel suspended five BJP MLAs for the day after they protested against AAP MLA Atishi’s motion accusing Saxena of interfering in the working of state government, reported PTI.
BJP legislators Ajay Mahawar, Jitendra Mahajan, OP Sharma, Abhay Verma and Anil Bajpai were marshalled out on Goel’s directions.
Atishi said that Delhi is the only state to have allotted a quarter of its budget for education. “The LG’s order to stop teachers from training in Finland is illegal,” she added. “He holds a constitutional post and is not a BJP agent. He doesn’t have power to take independent decisions according to Supreme Court orders.”
On Monday, Kejriwal had also led a march to Saxena’s home to protest against his alleged interference in the working of his government.
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