Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 1: Even as the Delhi lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Thursday accused the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of levelling “false accusations” against him “in an act of desperation,” his Aam Aadmi Party legislators passed the motion of confidence in his government with an overwhelming majority.
There were 58 votes in support of the motion with none against in the 70-member state Assembly. The opposition BJP did not take part in the voting as five of its members walked out of the House in protest against marshalling out earlier of three of its members for creating ruckus in the House before the voting on the motion tabled by Kejriwal on Friday was taken on hand. The BJP has only eight MLAs in the House.
Though the AAP enjoyed a comfortable majority in the House, the Kejriwal government had moved the confidence motion only to establish that the alleged attempt by the BJP to topple the government by “buying out” its MLAs did not work. After the voting on the motion on Thursday, Kejriwal said the ‘Operation Lotus’ had failed. “Today we have proved to the country that you can’t buy AAP’s people. They could not buy even one MLA of the AAP,” Kejriwal added.
Even as the House was debating the confidence motion, the Delhi lieutenant governor said Kejriwal was resorting to “diversionary tactics” and “false accusations” against him in an act of desperation. In a tweet, Saxena said he would not be surprised if more such “personal” and “baseless” attacks were made against him and his family members in the coming days.
“I called for good governance, zero tolerance to corruption and better services for the people of Delhi. But unfortunately Hon’ble CM @ArvindKejriwal Ji in desperation has resorted to diversionary tactics and false accusations,” Saxena said.
The L-G added that he would “under no circumstances whatsoever be deterred from constitutional duties”. “My commitment to improving lives of the people of Delhi remains unwavering,” he added.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-government has accused Saxena of pressurising two of his subordinates to get demonetised currency notes worth ₹1,400 crore exchanged during his term as the Khadi and Village Industries Commission chairman (KVIC) in 2016. The LG has dismissed the claims and called them a “figment of their (AAP leaders’) imagination,” and had also threatened to initiate defamation proceedings against some AAP leaders for such “highly defamatory and false corruption accusations against him.”
Highlighting the issues in the working of the Delhi government, Saxena, in another tweet, said, “Abiding by the Constitution and my duties towards the people of Delhi, I flagged the issues of: Grave anomalies in Excise Policy later withdrawn by the Cabinet headed by CM @ArvindKejriwal ji himself.” Saxena also alleged that there had been an “inordinate delay of two-and-a-half years in acting on CVC report on irregularities in construction of classrooms in Delhi Government Schools.”
The AAP Member of Parliament Sanjay Singh, however, retorted, “So many tweets against Arvind ji? Are you so scared?” he asked the LG. “Should there be zero tolerance against your corruption too? People are telling many of your cases during KVIC tenure. Did you give contract to your daughter without tender? Does Modi ji know about this?” Singh asked.
Earlier during his reply to the debate on the confidence motion, Kejriwal targeting the BJP as a “corrupt party” compared to his “kattar imaandar (hardcore honest)” Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), flexed his IIT education and that of his children in his speech.
“I am an ordinary person. I belong to an ordinary, middle-class family. I went to IIT, did mechanical engineering. Today, whatever I am is because of the opportunity I got,” said the Delhi Chief Minister. Kejriwal said both his children studied in IIT (Indian Institutes of Technology), and he wanted to provide the “same education to every child in India.”
“Both my children studied in IIT. My dream is to provide to every child in India the same kind of education my children got. The high quality education that I got,” he said. Projecting AAP as an alternative to the BJP, Mr Kejriwal said there are currently only two parties at the national level — ‘Kattar Imandar (hardcore honest) party and Kattar Beimaan (hardcore corrupt) party’. “An absolutely corrupt party lacks educated people while a ‘hardcore honest’ party has people with good education, genuine IIT degrees,” he said, taking a dig at the BJP.
Accusing the BJP of horse-trading, Kejriwal said: “They are spending ₹ 20-50 crore to buy MLAs. Am I doing anything wrong if I want to build schools and hospitals?” he asked. He also referred to the CBI raids on his deputy Manish Sisodia’s House for alleged irregularities in the excise policy and claimed that the CBI was acting under pressures from the BJP government at the centre. “After raids, officials told Sisodia that they didn’t get anything, but there is a lot of pressure to arrest him and they’ll have to arrest him once. Manish ji said that no worries, tell him when they want to arrest him, he’ll come. So, he will be arrested,” Kejriwal added.
But he said as and when Sisodia was arrested under false accusations, the AAP’s vote share would group by six per cent in the prime minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat going to the polls later this year. “Since the raid at Sisodia’s house, the AAP’s vote share in Gujarat has increased by 4%. The day he is arrested, I think our vote share will increase by 6% more,” he added.
