Delhi CM Kejriwal has been building a public campaign against the ordinance and met with several opposition leaders to garner support against it.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday called on the people of the city to “remove an arrogant dictator” and “defeat autocracy”, as he sharpened his attack on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government over an ordinance issued last month over the control of services in the national capital, saying that his is a fight to “save the Constitution”.
In a show of strength against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held a “maha rally” at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, with the party’s senior leaders in attendance. Addressing the thousands-strong crowd, which included AAP workers, Kejriwal said: “The movement to save democracy and the Constitution that is beginning from this stage today will be successful.”
In the 75-year history of Independent India, Kejriwal said, “this is the first time a Prime Minister is not listening to the SC’s order”.
“This is how democracy ends. This is a dictatorship,” the AAP national convener added.
The Union government on May 19 brought an ordinance effectively nullifying a May 11order of the Supreme Court that shifted the authority of controlling bureaucrats in all but three domains from the lieutenant governor to the city’s elected government.
The ordinance also provided for creating a National Capital Civil Service Authority and Public Service Commission for transfers and postings of officers.
Over the last one month, Kejriwal has met several opposition leaders to garner support against the ordinance to build a public campaign as well as one aimed at halting any move by the Centre to turn its ordinance into a full-fledged law in parliament, particularly in the Rajya Sabha.
Soon after the rally, Delhi BJP held a press conference attacking Kejriwal as an “ill-mannered nawab”, and objecting to the language used by him against PM Modi.
Kejriwal drew on his choice of location for the rally, where the 54-year-old AAP leader shot to prominence during anti-corruption protests in 2011. On Sunday, in his 36-minute-long address, he said that while he stood at the Ramlila Maidan 12 years ago against corruption, now he is launching a movement against an “autocratic dictator”.
“People will not be supreme. LG will be supreme. People can vote for anyone but the government will be run by the Prime Minister through the LG… This is like changing the Constitution in which people will not be supreme and their vote will have no value,” he said, adding that the ordinance is an “affront to the people of Delhi”.
Similar ordinances will be brought in other states, Kejriwal warned.
“I want to tell people of the nation… this has not been done to people of Delhi only. It is just the first blow. Similar ordinances, which aims to enforce autocracy in Delhi, will be brought for Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and other states. We will have to get together to stop it,” he said.
Throughout his speech, the CM accused PM Modi and the BJP-led central government of blocking schemes and projects initiated by the and referred to the arrests of his former cabinet colleagues, Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain, as attempts to halt AAP’s work
“We have hundreds of Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain. No work will stop. After jailing ministers, they want to stop our works through this ordinance,” he said.
Sisodia, who held the education portfolio among several others, was arrested, first by CBI on February 26, and then by ED on March 9, in the probes related to the now-scrapped Delhi excise policy. Jain held the health portfolio until he was arrested by ED on May 30 last year in a money laundering case.
Kejriwal, while not naming the PM directly, said: “The country is suffering from inflation but the chauthi paas raja is unable to handle it. They can’t even figure out whether ₹2,000 notes should be introduced or withdrawn.”
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on May 19 announced it will phase out ₹2,000 denomination notes from circulation in less than seven years of its introduction, giving people time till the end of September to exchange them.
He also attacked the BJP for referring to public welfare schemed in Delhi as “revdis”. “If we kept revdis in hands of poor people, what was wrong with it? Modi ji gave everything in the country to his friend,” he said, in an apparent reference to industrialist Gautam Adani, whose Adani Enterprises was accused of fraud by a US short-seller Hindenburg Research.
At the event, former Congress leader and Union minister during the Congress-led UPA government, Kapil Sibal said that all institutions in country, except the judiciary, have been compromised. Both democracy and brotherhood in the country are in danger, he said.
“Modi ji advocates double engine government. It is not double engine but a double barrel government with ED and CBI as its two barrels… SC orders can’t be nullified through ordinances like this. Whenever the Constitution is attacked, we should all get together,” he said, making an appeal to opposition parties to forge an alliance ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Kejriwal’s Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann also addressed the rally, where he referred to the BJP as the “Bharatiya Jugaad Party” which tries every “jugaad (trick)” to topple governments run by opposition parties.
Addressing mediapersons, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva said the people of Delhi were ashamed because of the rally.
“Kejriwal is ill mannered, corrupt and useless but the language used by him today shows the shallowness that he has reached to cover the corruption. He says in his speech that he has hundreds of Manish Sisodias and Satyendar Jains which shows that the entire party is floating in the Ganga of corruption. Jain looted Delhi and Sisodia undertook excise scam worth several crores. This is a party of corrupt and cunning people,” Sachdeva said.
“People of Delhi have now seen the reality. This is no longer a party of aam aadmi, but of a corrupt man. Delhi BJP will expose their every act of corruption and bring him to justice like his two other ministers,” he added.
Likening Kejriwal to a king, BJP’s North East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari said, “Raja Sahib Kejriwal reached Ramlila Maidan from his ₹174 crore palace with cars worth several crores… This was the same place where Anna Hazare and Kejriwal sat under the banner of India Against Corruption. He was using shallow language to hide the corruption of his party. Why did he not speak about Lokpal even once? If a Lokpal was in place, he could have decided their fate. He used to criticise Kapil Sibal’s corruption but now he is seen praising him in this rally.”
Kejriwal is a “political tourist” visiting various parts of the city, ignoring the real problems of the people of Delhi, Tiwari said.
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