AAP defiant, says Arvind Kejriwal will remain Delhi CM

A senior MCD official said that after the Delhi high court order, the process for providing notebooks, stationery, school bags and uniform is being initiated and the benefits will reach around 650,000 students.

Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Monday said that Arvind Kejriwal will remain the chief minister of Delhi, after the Delhi high court said that a person holding the post of chief minister should not be incommunicado for an uncertain period in national and public interest, in the MCD textbook case. He blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and lieutenant governor VK Saxena for disrupting the work of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), over the issue of the lack of a standing committee.

AAP workers hold up Kejriwal’s photo during their Lok Sabha election campaign. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

The LG secretariat declined to comment on the AAP’s allegations. The BJP said it was a black day in Delhi’s history and that the order was a clear message from the judiciary for the chief minister to resign in public interest.

A senior MCD official said that after the Delhi high court order, the process for providing notebooks, stationery, school bags and uniform is being initiated and the benefits will reach around 650,000 students. “We expect to spend around ₹70 crore on disbursal of these benefits. Each student will be provided a subsidy of around ₹1,100 and we will also be holding camps for enrolment of students who do not have bank accounts so that subsidy can be directly transferred to them,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

The MCD official said that the distribution process will be completed in next 15-20 days. The official said that NCERT textbooks for classes 1 to 3 have been changed and new books are still being procured, while the textbooks for classes 4 and 5 remain the same. “The textbooks are being provided by the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. We will start the distribution as soon as the next lot of books is received. All necessary steps are being taken to ensure the compliance with the high court order,” the official added.

On whether the order would help in clearing other works pending due to non-formation of the standing committee, the official said that the corporation’s law department will legally examine the order.

Addressing a press conference, Sanjay Singh said: “It is the decision of people of Delhi and its MLAs that Arvind Kejriwal is the chief minister, was the chief minister and will remain the chief minister. You will remember that we had conducted a survey in this matter in entire Delhi and sought opinion from people. All of them also unanimously said that Kejriwal was, is and will remain the Chief Minister. with great respect to the court...not one, but three petitions were filed in the High Court demanding the resignation of Shri Arvind Kejriwal. The same High Court said that Arvind Kejriwal does not need to resign.”

He added: “CM’s decision not to resign is a decision to exercise his rights democratically against the dictatorship of the central government and the BJP Government. In a democracy, it is the MLAs who decide who will remain the Chief Minister and who not; the Assembly decides. And in the last six months, three times the MLAs have accepted him as their leader and have decided that the Delhi government will run under his leadership and a proposal has been passed that even if he (Arvind Kejriwal) goes to jail, the government will be run from jail.”

He said that a proposal was passed by the assembly previously, with support reiterated over the past six months, that even if Arvind Kejriwal was jailed, the government would be run from jail. “The work of the people of Delhi has neither been disrupted before, nor is it being disrupted now. All our ministers are continuously working. They meet the CM and do further works as per his instructions,” he said.

On the work of the MCD being impacted, Singh said that the LG arbitrarily nominated BJP leaders as aldermen. “When matter reached the Supreme Court, the court banned the alderman’s right to vote, while the case of these nominations is pending. The work is being affected due to non-constitution of standing committee in the MCD,” Singh said.

The 18-member standing committee controls the purse strings of the MCD and its formation has remained stuck over the past year due to political and legal tussles over the appointment of nominated members of the corporation, referred to as “aldermen”, for over a year and four months. The Supreme Court reserved its judgment on the aldermen issue last May.

Singh said that with respect to the high court’s observations, “Kejriwal is a true patriot” and that no one could question his patriotism or honesty. “There has been a political conspiracy against him... Arvind Kejriwal is not greedy for a post. When it comes to principles, Kejriwal is the person who resigned from the post of chief minister in his 49-day government,” he said.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said: “Delhi high court not only reprimanded the Delhi government and the Delhi municipal corporation for the second time in three days, but also criticised chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Saurabh Bharadwaj for their conduct regarding the irregularities in municipal schools. The observations of the is a message that the chief minister of Delhi should resign in public interest.”

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that the people of Delhi wished to ask Sanjay Singh why the government couldn’t empower the municipal commissioner to approve expenses over ₹5 crore, if the administration was running well. “They are anarchic by nature and they wish to run the administration on their whims, ignoring constitutional norms. There is no ideological reason behind the AAP not allowing standing committee election. It is actually the fear of loosing the election.”