Ajay Maken urges Congress not to back AAP over Delhi ‘services’ ordinance

The Congress is yet to decide where it will stand on the issue when it is taken up in Parliament in the next session

Congress leader Ajay Maken on Tuesday urged his party not to back the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in preventing parliamentary approval for an ordinance that restores to the Union government the power over “services” in Delhi, citing administrative, political, and legal reasons for his stance.

Congress leader Ajay Maken. (PTI)

In a Twitter post Titled “An Examination of Reasons to Not Oppose the Ordinance - Administrative, Political, and Legal Aspects”, Maken said that supporting the AAP’s position on the issue will go “against the decisions and wisdom” of leaders including BR Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, and PV Narasimha Rao.

To be sure, the Congress is yet to decide where it will stand on the issue when it is taken up in Parliament in the next session, and its general secretary (administration) KC Venugopal on Monday said they are deliberating on the issue.

The ordinance was issued on May 19, days after a May 11 Supreme Court verdict gave the Delhi government control over bureaucrats assigned to departments under its purview. Any ordinance needs be passed by Parliament within six weeks of its reassembly, or it lapses.

In order to back his argument, Maken cited a litany of issues on which the AAP and the Congress have been at odds. He said that the AAP, along with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in 2018, passed a resolution in the Delhi assembly requesting the Union government to withdraw Bharat Ratna from the late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

He also alleged that chief minister Arvind Kejriwal backed the BJP both inside and outside Parliament when Jammu & Kashmir’s special status was removed in 2019.

His other objections included Kejriwal’s ostensible support to the BJP during the move to impeach Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Mishra in 2018, his not backing the Opposition’s candidate for the Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson (in 2020). He accused the AAP of backing the BJP in Gujarat, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Uttarakhand, and Karnataka elections, where Congress was the primary opposition or the ruling party.

On an administrative front, Maken argued that if the ordinance does not pass, Kejriwal gains a unique privilege previously denied to chief ministers such as Sheila Dikshit.

He also asked that if previous Delhi chief ministers could perform their roles without fuss, why is Kejriwal stirring up chaos now? “Is this mere political posturing? Unfortunately, it’s Delhi that bears the brunt of this unrest. In this turmoil, Delhi suffers the most,” Maken said, citing government decisions from 1951 to 1991 to back his argument that such powers always wrested with the Centre through its lieutenant governor.

Maken’s post comes at a time when Kejriwal has sought unity among non-BJP parties to prevent parliamentary approval for the ordinance.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday as part of the Janata Dal (United) leader’s attempts to bring together non-BJP parties ahead of the 2024 national polls. Kumar met Kejriwal the previous day.

AAP stormed to power first in 2013 with Congress’s support and then got two landslide victories in Delhi.