Omar Abdullah to AAP over ordinance row: ‘Your chickens have come home to roost’

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to Opposition parties not to let the related bill pass through the Rajya Sabha.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Saturday denounced the controversial ordinance brought by the Centre to regain control over Delhi’s officers as a “travesty.” Abdullah, however, took a swipe at the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) alleging that they “happily sided” with the BJP when the state of Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two separate Union Territories, and said that “chickens have come home to roost now.”

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah.

The Union government on Friday evening issued an ordinance restoring to itself the power over “services” in the national capital, a week after the Supreme Court ruled that the Delhi government has control over bureaucrats assigned to departments under its purview. The ordinance also strengthened the position of the Lieutenant Governor (LG), making him the final authority who can act in his “sole discretion” in deciding the matters relating to the transfer and posting of bureaucrats.

The ruling AAP termed the ordinance "unconstitutional" and a "brazen assault" on the democratic principles of the country.

In a tweet, AAP's national spokesperson Raghav Chadha said, “What next?! A constitutional amendment that any state that votes into power a non-BJP government will be stripped of its legislature and transformed into a centrally administered territory?”

Reacting to Chadha's tweet, Abdullah wrote, “What has been done to Delhi is a travesty & goes against the spirit of cooperative federalism.”

“That said Raghav, it’s a shame the AAP didn’t realise the danger of its actions when it happily sided with the BJP in Aug 2019. J&K was dismembered & reduced to a union territory & the people have been disenfranchised for 5 years. Sadly your chickens have come home to roost now.”

To be sure, Delhi chief minister and the AAP’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal had tweeted in support of the central government’s move to scrap Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The party, however, maintained that it never supported the idea of converting the state into a union territory.

"Some people are peddling delusions that AAP supported UT (Union Territory) status. AAP and Arvind Kejriwal ji have not supported UT status. Article 370 does not mean that you strip full statehood of Jammu and Kashmir and create it into a union territory with a legislative assembly. AAP does not support any such initiative," AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had then told ANI.