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Kejriwal asks a question on Twitter on Praful Patel, leaves it at that
Praful Khodabhai Patel is presently the administrator of Dadra Nagar and Haveli and Daman and Diu and of Lakshadweep (additional charge). Kejriwal's tweet comes amid a fresh row over MCD election.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday posted a cryptic tweet in which he asked whether Lakshadweep administrator Praful Patel is being made the next LG of Delhi. The tweet comes as the Aam Aadmi Party is soaking in the glory of getting a huge mandate in Punjab, its first big gain outside Delhi.
Praful Khodabhai Patel, who was Gujarat's home minister when Narendra Modi was the chief minister, is presently the administrator of Dadra Nagar and Haveli and Daman and Diu and of Lakshadweep (additional charge) In Lakshadweep, he has faced stiff resistance for bringing in some draft regulations to change the landscape of Lakshadweep. According to those regulations, any area of the island can be declared as a planning area by the administrator for the purpose of development.
Delhi's present L-G Anil Baijal, a 1969-batch UT cadre officer, was appointed to the post in December 2016.
Kejriwal's tweet with no other information on whether he has learnt that Centre is appointing Praful Patel as the next LG of Delhi has triggered speculation ahead of the MCD election.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday moved the Delhi high court seeking its direction to the State Election Commission to conduct MCD elections with EVMs that are compatible with VVPAT.
The State Election Commission was scheduled to announce the dates of the MCD polls on March 9, a day before the counting of the votes of the five assembly elections took place. The State Election Commission, at the last minute, deferred the announcement and said it has received a communication from the Centre and the announcement of the dates has been deferred for a week.
While the State Election Commission maintained that only the date of the announcement got deferred and not the election, Kejriwal termed this intervention of the Centre as 'unprecedented, unconstitutional and bad for democracy'. Kejriwal said the Centre wanted to combine the three municipal corporations — North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation and the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party has been at the Centre for 7-8 years now. If they had to combine the three bodies, why didn’t they do it in all these years? Why write to the EC just one hour before the scheduled announcement of the dates for the MCD polls,” Kejriwal had said earlier.
