VIKRAMJIT BANERJEE
The problem with Aam Admi Party is that it is not interested in governance of any sort. Those of us who are not fans of the AAP , can only lean back and tell people who in those pink tinted days hailed AAP as the next hope of leftish politics , we told you so . Sadly , in this case the fact that we have been proved right so many times and on so many issues is not a matter of comfort for us , because in front of us we can see that the governance of the entire city of Delhi going from worse to complete disaster .
When people voted in such overwhelming numbers for the AAP two years back , the voters of Delhi thought that AAP would be able to deliver on pro people governance models . The schemes of the Mohalla Sabha , free wi-fi and camera in every corner of Delhi to make Delhi safe for women were some of the schemes which caught the imagination of the people . However increasingly it appears that those who had talked so much about the various schemes, have no interest in delivering on any of their promises . It seems that they are more interested in moving from one set of promises to another set of promises continuously in such rapid succession that people cant even remember what they have been promised and what has not been delivered . A politics of cynicism and frivolity is being created . This politics is heavily driven not by policy ( which does not in any case seem to be the strong point of the Party or it’s leaders ) but by an attempt to manage and orchestrate perception by manipulation of the social and other media . Besides the obvious social media presence which the AAP is famous for , the ad spend in various newspapers clearly show that the party has come to believe that the reel thing is actually the real thing . Sadly , Delhi is real , it’s schools are real , it’s roads and flyovers are real and its water service is a real problem . None of these problems will go away even if Mr. Kejriwal manages to win the election in Punjab , which seems unlikely to happen inspite of the hoopla created around his campaign .
The latest “talking point” and we deliberately call it that because it is not an issue , and , because we are sceptical of the AAP treating it seriously like an issue , is the question of the status of Delhi National Capital Territory (NCT). The AAP it seems wants Delhi to be governed like a State and wants the decision of it’s council of ministers binding on the Lieutenant Governor of the territory . At the same time , it is also demanding full statehood for the territory , clearly accepting that Delhi is not a full state. The fact that the two arguments are mutually contradictory doesn’t seem to have remotely struck it’s media savvy leaders . We had no expectation that it would . A reasonable man who is the basis of the Rule of Law anywhere in the world is an alien in the world according to AAP.
The national capital is a sensitive territory unlike any other , all the governance of the entire country is carried on from here. The Supreme Court , the Parliament and offices of the Executive are situated here . The Prime Minister and the President live here and so does the Chief Justice and other Judges of the Supreme Court. The world visits India at Delhi and India interacts with the rest of the world through Delhi. The government of Delhi is therefore expected to act in consonance with the government of the day at the Center because otherwise the functioning of India will be brought to a standstill.
All of us know , that Delhi National Capital Territory is what it is , an Union Territory with an elected Assembly . During the course of politics of the last four or five decades there have been numerous demands for granting statehood to Delhi , precisely because Delhi was not a State and that remains the status till today under Part VIII of the Constitution which deals with “Union Territories” . In terms of Article 239 of the Constitution the person designated by the President administers the Union Territory unlike the Governor of a State who governs the state through the council of ministers of the state . Delhi is no exception . The only clear difference with other Union Territories is that it has been granted an elected assembly by Article 239 AA of the Constitution , unlike Puducherry (the only other Union Territory which has an elected assembly – which has been granted one by a statute under Article 239 A) and the Presidential designate has been termed as the Lieutenant Governor. Merely because Delhi has an elected assembly that doesn’t make it a state or even a quasi or semi state as long as the Constitution doesn’t recognise it to be one . Unlike other states of the country , Delhi traces it’s powers and existence specifically to Article 239AA. Subsection(4) Proviso of the Article clearly states that in case of difference of opinion between the LG and the Council of Ministers regarding any advice , the LG shall refer it to the President and according to the decision of the President and pending the said decision of the President the LG if it is felt to very urgent can give such direction as he feels necessary . This status is specifically clarified by the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Act , 1991 ( GNCTD Act ). The attempt of AAP to overreach the LG is clearly contrary to the very provisions of the Constitution. The judgment of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi a few days back just reads the Constitution as it is and rightly so.
The demand for a self governing Delhi is a laudatory objective . The statehood of Delhi is indeed an objective which all of us want to achieve. This means that we would ideally want a stage to come when Delhi doesn’t have to be subject to the checks of Presidential superintendence through the LG. However the AAP has done and is doing all it can, to prove right all the nay sayers who have been sceptical of granting Delhi full statehood. The national capital is a sensitive territory unlike any other , all the governance of the entire country is carried on from here. The Supreme Court , the Parliament and offices of the Executive are situated here . The Prime Minister and the President live here and so does the Chief Justice and other Judges of the Supreme Court. The world visits India at Delhi and India interacts with the rest of the world through Delhi. The government of Delhi is therefore expected to act in consonance with the government of the day at the Center because otherwise the functioning of India will be brought to a standstill. The Provison in Article 239AA has been created for the precise purpose to ensure that Delhi doesn’t have a government which can hold the rest of India hostage to it’s own politics. It is to ensure as per the Balakrishnan Committee for “Re-organisation of the Delhi set-up” that the Delhi government acts responsibly and with maturity specially since it has the responsibility of running the most sensitive government in the entire country . The wild antics of the present Delhi government including the Dharna by the sitting CM against the Central Government of the day and the constant attempt to create obstacles in policing of such a highly sensitive territory as Delhi and the running threat to hold the Central government hostage to their demands has done more damage to the argument for Statehood of Delhi , then any act of the Central government in the entire history of Delhi NCT.
The state of Delhi is a good example of what happens when the governance of any territory gets handed over to amateurs who find governance too boring and trumped up frivolous causes and the politics of permanent grievance more interesting . The boring jobs of fixing roads , providing schools and colleges , looking after public health , improving the lives of it’s villagers , ensuring steady water and electricity supply to all it’s residents is too far away from the mind of the government of the day which is intent on protecting a stream of corrupt MLAs accused of every sort of wheeling and dealing in the world , carrying on a running battle with everyone including it’s own bureaucracy and creating an atmosphere of a continuous political circus disguised in the form of a permanent ongoing revolution. It is a small mercy that it has not managed to get it’s hands on the police which it so desperately wants.
From our side we wish that Shri Arvind Kejriwal had spent his time better by visiting all his constituencies in Delhi and holding regular meetings for protection for women in Delhi but then it would be “too normal” for a Chief Minister of Delhi and completely infra dig for someone who aspires to be Chief Inquisitor , Chief Revolutionary and the biggest media sensation in the country all rolled into one , all the while aspiring to the next big event….Punjab tomorrow and the country day after . Scary !
(The writer is Advocate, Supreme Court of India.)