Out of the blue, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal seems on a confrontation course with Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung. He has given no reason for instructing officials not to trouble the L-G with files, other than to say that this was in the interest of “efficiency”. The L-G, in turn, has asked officials to go by the Constitution and the laws.
Since Mr Kejriwal became chief minister some two months ago, he has not once suggested inefficiency has crept in because the L-G had to be mandatorily kept in the loop, as the law makes clear. So what is the chief minister’s real grouse?
Led by Mr Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party gained a stunning victory in the February election. The sensational win flowed from the promises made to the electorate to address their water and electricity woes, besides the assurance of consulting ordinary people in the framing of the budget through mohalla sabhas (residential area consultations).
The sense people seem to have in Delhi is that AAP has gone into a shell after its famous victory, and has been absorbed with serious internal problems that led to the expulsion of several founder members and ardent adherents. Issues of governance have fallen by the wayside. Coterie raj is said to obtain as Mr Kejriwal appears to many to aspire to become the centre of the little universe that is the national capital. What a pity. What a downfall after the brave new world the AAP promised the country, and on that basis gathered the allegiance of lakhs of idealistic people across India.
As a consequence of the sudden decline in AAP’s fortunes in the public estimation, the chief minister may be looking for windmills to tilt at. He is going at the L-G. He is going at the media. He went at his top colleagues who had helped him shape the party. It is hard to say who else might be on the hit-list. So bad have things got that people readily believe anything negative about AAP, including the silly charge being laid at the door of its leader Kumar Vishwas regarding an alleged relationship.
But the way out of the troubles is not to cock a snook at the L-G. In terms of law — the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991 — and the Constitution, Delhi is not a full-fledged state, and governance is supervised by the Centre through the agency of the L-G. It is perfectly legitimate to ask (and opinion will differ on this) if Delhi should not have full statehood, and to build public opinion on that question without letting the day-to-day administration suffer. But the chief minister seems to be on a trajectory that is hard to understand.
