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Lok Sabha approves Bill to reunify Delhi’s MCDs after 10 years
Defending the move to merge the three municipal corporations, Union home minister Amit Shah accused the city government of meting out ‘step-motherly treatment’ to the civic agencies.
New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to reunify the Capital’s three municipal corporations, with the Union home minister Amit Shah defending the move on the grounds that the trifurcated bodies had not achieved their goal, and alleging that the Delhi government was meting out “step-motherly treatment” to the civic agencies.
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The Bill was passed following a lengthy debate during which several opposition MPs accused the Centre of thwarting the civic elections and attacking the federal separation of powers – allegations the home minister denied.
“Those who are saying that MCD polls have been postponed due to fear of polls, are themselves scared. If you are so confident of the victory then why do you want elections right now? If you have done good work, you will win six months later too,” he said in his reply to the debate.
Shah added that Bill could only be brought now since the term of the three councils was ending.
He said proposed changes were meant to bring more transparency to the functioning of the agencies and allow for better citizen services, adding that the trifurcation of the MCD was done in a hurry for political reasons, which lead to an imbalance between the income and liabilities of the civic bodies.
“I tried to look for the reasons for the trifurcation, scoured through files but could not find anything on it,” he said, adding that it was done for political reasons.
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The legislation was introduced weeks before elections to the Capital’s three civic bodies were set to be held in April. These polls will now be pushed back since the law proposes to redraw municipality wards and cut the number of council seats to 250, a process that could take months.
The Bill was opposed by members of the Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena, Bahujan Samaj Party, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), and the YSR Congress (YSRCP). The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which currently has three members in the Rajya Sabha does not have any member in the Lower House after former Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann resigned to take over as Punjab CM.
The MPs opposed the amendments mostly on the ground that they appeared to interfere with the election process, or that they were against the spirit of federalism.
Soon after Shah’s initial speech in the Parliament, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said the Bill was only a pretext being used by the BJP to “run away” from the MCD elections.
“The BJP must remember that before 2011-12, the municipality was a single entity under BJP’s rule. There used to be corruption and pollution then as well. You’ll see with three municipalities also, BJP won’t be able to make a change, it can only do corruption. Union home minister Amit Shah knows this well. Currently, they’re just running away from the polls and have, thus, brought the Bill. The people of Delhi have understood the actions of the BJP very well by now,” Sisodia said.
Shah hit back in the House at two of the parties — the Congress and the Trinamool Congress — and blamed both for failing to ensure democracy within their own political organisations. Responding to MPs who drew parallels with the way Jammu & Kashmir was divided into three Union territories, Shah assured the members that elections in J&K will be held in consultation with other parties once the delimitation process is completed.
Shah said under Article 239AA of the Constitution of India, Parliament has the power to amend or form laws on any matter formulated by the Delhi assembly, and told opposition parties that similar measures cannot be taken in states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat or West Bengal because they are not UTs.
He also read out a noting of the then Union home minister P Chidambaram from 2011, when the unified MCD was being trifurcated by the Congress governments at the Centre and in Delhi, to support his argument that the Centre is will within its Constitutional rights to make such an intervention.
“If you see with political lens you won’t be able to see the constitutional provisions by virtue of which we are bringing this Bill. A few MPs said that we are just doing all this for power. How do you get power? Only by winning elections. Yes, we want to win as many states as we can and that should be the ambition of every political party. What is wrong in that? There should be healthy competition. Supriya Sule ji (NCP leader) asked why are we doing this now? Let me remind how the parties in Maharashtra’s wanted OBC reservation in the local body polls…,” he said.
Shah referred to the term of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her decision to invoke the Emergency. “Allahabad high court had cancelled the election of Indira Gandhi. Soon after, a PM who didn’t have right to vote in this House snatched away democratic rights in the country and imposed Emergency. Lakhs of people were put in jail. The media was banned. That’s fear…If you are so confident of the victory then why do you want elections right now? If you have done good work, you will win six months later too,” he said.
The BJP leader alleged that the Delhi government deprived the three MCDs of its legitimate funds. “The fifth finance commission of Delhi had stated that the three MCDs should get ₹40,561 crore, but the Delhi government gave less than ₹7,000 crore. At present, the three MCDs have a deficit of ₹11,000 crore. But, ₹32,000 crore was not given to them. If Delhi government had given this, then there would have been a surplus of ₹22,000 crore and MCDs would have been able to thrive and perform their civic services better. How is the Delhi government having the funds to give crores for advertisements? We are not breaking the federal structure of the country. These people are who not giving adequate money to the civic bodies are doing so,” Shah said.
In an interview to HT on Sunday, Sisodia, when asked about the funding issue of MCDs, said the problem can be solved only when a party has the intention to do honest and corruption free governance. “The problem is that all the three MCDs in Delhi are currently ruled by the BJP, which has done nothing other than looting people’s money. People are fed up of the BJP’s rampant corruption in MCDs. They now want an honest party which is high on performance deliverables and AAP symbolises that,” he said.
Delhi’s MCD elections were scheduled to be held in April and the state election commission had planned to announce the poll schedule on March 9, but deferred it at the last minute citing a communication from the Lieutenant Governor that stated that the Centre is planning to reunify the three MCDs.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said they will study the Bill and if the need arises, they will challenge it in court.
Shah justified the reduction in the number of councillors (wards) from 272 to a maximum of 250 stating that it was calculated based on a rule which mentions that there should be about 225 wards if the population of a city-state is less than 20 million. “Mumbai has 227 wards (corporators). Delhi has a bit more than 20 million people, so there will be up to 250 wards. How did you (the Congress) come to the figure of 272 wards for Delhi when the unified MCD was being trifurcated in 2011-12? We arrived at 250 as an ideal act states that for a state which has less than 2 crore population, there should be 225 wards. Delhi has more than 2 crore so we decided on 250,” he said
The passing of the Bill in Lok Sabha was all but certain since the BJP has a majority. If the Bill is passed in the Rajya Sabha as well, the ministry of home affairs will issue a gazette notification and the three MCDs will be unified from the specified date.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was split into three in 2011 after the Delhi assembly, at the time controlled by Congress, passed a Bill for its trifurcation. The Bill was subsequently approved by then President Pratibha Patil, following which the Delhi government at the time issued a notification splitting the MCD into the East Delhi municipal corporation, the South Delhi municipal corporation and the North Delhi municipal corporation.
