JOIN USLegalistically, the resolution passed by the AAP-dominated Delhi Assembly against the Centre’s May 21 notification amounted to nothing. But it did signal the next phase in the war between the Centre and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over who has the bigger say in running the national capital. Armed with the sense of the House, the Kejriwal government has now moved the High Court against the Home Ministry notification which said that the Lieutenant Governor calls the shots in Delhi. And a day earlier, the Centre went to the Supreme Court challenging a High Court order diluting the same notification. Around the time that the resolution was being debated in the 70-member House that has only three non-AAP MLAs, the city government also transferred Anindo Majumdar, an officer at the heart of the recent row between Kejriwal and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung. The transfer was in defiance of the Centre’s notification which said that appointing IAS officers was the L-G’s call. Clearly, no side is willing to budge.
Nobody can fault Kejriwal for calling a special session of the Assembly. After all, the Delhi model of governance in which the Centre, the state government and the municipalities share power, could do with some changes. And fighting it out in the courts is much better than locking some babu caught in the middle of the L-G versus CM turf war out of his office. But the danger is that the battle with the Centre could end up consuming the entire energies of the Aam Aadmi Party government. Remember, it was the Centre-state differences over the protocol involved in introducing the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Assembly that led to Kejriwal quitting after just 49 days in power last year. Delhi ended up then with a long spell under the President’s rule, with governance taking a knock.
The chief minister has to take care that the current tussle doesn’t end up hurting Delhi again. IAS officers like Majumdar, the one who found the lockon his office the other day, are hardly expected togive their best in such an environment. Even before the Assembly session, the Delhi-based officers had adopted a resolution expressing their disquiet. Kejri-wal might have made it his mission to secure full powers for an elected government in Delhi – he may now even have a shot at bringing together like-minded CMs from other states on a common platform on Centre-state relations – but he should also remember the other electoral promises that he made to Delhiites. For the city’s sake, the fight for full statehood should not end up as the main theme of his term.