Fight between elected govt, selected official: Sisodia

NEW DELHI: Disagreeing with the Delhi High Court judgment, Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday said the fight was not between the lieutenant-governor

NEW DELHI: Disagreeing with the Delhi High Court judgment, Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday said the fight was not between the lieutenant-governor and the AAP administration but an elected government and a selected few.

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“This is not Kejriwal vs Jung but about elected government vs selected official, and the mandate of the people. The verdict says the L-G is not bound by the advice of the council of ministers. Why were elections conducted then? We fully respect the high court, but we have a constitutional right to disagree with the verdict, and will approach the SC,” said Sisodia.

Sisodia said the high court verdict came as the Delhi government was acting against the corrupt and trying to change the system.

“In the past 20 years, the Congress has ruled the capital for 15 years and for five years, Delhites were under the BJP. Nothing changed in these 20 years and corruption was rampant in every department. A new party with a promise of ending corruption and improving the system came and got a massive mandate. People wanted to end corruption raj in transfer posting, the education system and hospitals,” he said.

The deputy CM said since 1993, the anti-corruption branch (ACB) was part of the Delhi government but when AAP came to power, the Centre suddenly took it away.

“We feel the public has chosen us to end corruption. Now there is a big question on whether elected MLAs have any importance or not. The constitution talks about “we the people” but do they have any rights or not?” he asked.

Giving an example, Sisodia said the elected government doesn’t have any say in the functioning of power companies but when the public suffers from power cuts, they hope the elected government will resolve the issue.

“It is the same is with other departments. People were not getting ration cards, roads were not maintained properly, there was scarcity of water, the standard of government schools was bad and the public had hope from the AAP government. When we tried to stop all this, the crisis started. The effort to curtail the rights of an elected government started. They want a government that does not act against corruption. “

Delhi home minister Satyendar Jain supported the deputy CM. “Several Acts of Parliament related to Delhi have defined the L-G and the government of NCT as different entities. So, if the Constitution had considered Delhi a mere UT, the city would have functioned like Chandigarh, Lakshadweep and Andamans. But it is not so,” he said.