Amid Delhi civic body brawl, Kejriwal accuses LG of "bypassing elected govt" while taking decisions

New Delhi [India], January 6 : As the Delhi Mayoral elections were stalled by the ruckus inside the civic centre on Friday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accused Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena of "issuing orders" on every subject including the ones he has "powers to do or not".
In a letter to the LG following the adjournment of the first day of the civic centre when the oath was to be administered to the newly elected councillors, Kejriwal said that there have been "bizarre developments" in the last few weeks on the part of Saxena.
He accused the LG of issuing direct orders to the Chief Secretary, "bypassing and ignoring the elected government".
"Last few weeks have seen some very bizarre developments. Hon'ble LG is directly issuing orders on practically every subject irrespective of whether it is reserved or transferred, irrespective of whether Hon'ble LG has the powers to do that or not. Hon'ble LG issues directions directly to the Chief Secretary who in turn gets them implemented completely bypassing and ignoring the elected govt," Kejriwal wrote.
"One would ask why are the officers implementing LG's illegal orders? Because Montle LG has complete control over the bureaucracy. LG has the power to transfer, suspend or take any other action against any employee of the Delhi govt. Unfortunately, the elected govt of Delhi has no control over employees," he added.
Citing the instance of the nomination of the 10 members by the LG, Kejriwal said that there was a tradition of the nomination of such members by the Delhi government, which was even followed by previous LG Anil Baijal also.
"For instance, as per Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 10 members with specialized knowledge could be nominated by the state govt. Till date, for the last many decades, these ten members were always nominated by the elected govt of Delhi," he said.
He said that the present LG "dictated ten names with BJP background and directed the Chief Secretary to issue notification".
"Chief Secretary complied. The elected government came to know from the newspapers. Since this is a transferred subject, as per the Constitution, it is the elected govt which had the power to nominate these members," the Chief Minister said.
"Likewise, as per Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, one of the councillors is nominated as presiding officer for administering oath to all councillors on the first day and for conducting the election of the Mayor, after which the Mayor takes over. Tradition has been that the seniormost member of the House, irrespective of party affiliations, is nominated by the state govt for this job," he added.
Kejriwal said that the LG nominated the councillor as the presiding officer who was "not the senior-most member".
"Therefore, the erstwhile tradition was also thrown to the winds. The elected govt was completely out of the picture though the Constitution empowers the elected govt to nominate the first presiding officer since it is a transferred subject," he said.
Kejriwal accused the LG of rendering the elected government "irrelevant".
"Control over bureaucracy through "services" is being misused," he alleged.
Earlier today, Kejriwal termed the move to invite the nominated councillors for taking oath ahead of the elected ones in the Mayoral polls "unconstitutional" while citing the Constitution.
"Article 243R of the Constitution clearly debars nominated members from voting in the House. Attempt to get them to vote in the House is unconstitutional," Kejriwal tweeted sharing the snippet of the Article.
This comes after a high-political drama broke out over the swearing-in of nominated councillors in the Civic Centre in which the aldermen (those who traditionally cannot vote) to the civic body were invited to take the oath.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also hit out at the BJP and accused the party of "stooping low" to "hide the misdeeds" in the MCD.
"BJP people will stoop so low to hide their misdeeds in MCD! Elections were postponed, illegal appointment of the presiding officer, illegal appointment of nominated councillors, and now the public's elected councillors are not being administered oath.... If you cannot respect the verdict of the public, then why the elections?" Sisodia tweeted in Hindi.
Amid chaos and clash between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party councillors at the Civic Center on Friday, the MCD House was adjourned even before the commencement of voting for mayoral polls.