CM-in-waiting declines security cover
New Delhi: AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal is set to be Delhi’s seventh chief minister after staking a claim on Monday to take power with Congress backing – amid vocal doubts about the government’s stability.
After a fortnight of deadlock that followed a hung verdict, Kejriwal, 45, announced after meeting Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung that he and his ministers would take oath at the Ramlila Maidan but did not give a date.
Without acknowledging the support of Congress’ eight legislators, a visibly confident Kejriwal asserted that the Aam Aadmi Party, which has 28 seats in the 70-member assembly, had the majority to rule Delhi.
“We are in a majority and we will form the government,” he said. “Let the opposition pass a no confidence motion.”
Among his first acts, Kejriwal quickly held a “training session” for his 27 legislators, most of whom are first timers in electoral politics.
Later, the activist-turned-politician who had vowed to end the VIP culture in Delhi, told police that he needed no security cover.
Delhi’s former chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who Kejriwal defeated by over 25,000 votes, gave her “best wishes” to the AAP but said the Congress support would be “conditional”.
She gently mocked at the AAP’s promise to drastically cut power tariff and provide 700 litres of water daily to all households.
The AAP was invited to form a government after the Bharatiya Janata Party, which finished with 31 seats, declined to do so.
The Congress then announced that its eight legislators would prop up the AAP, which decided to seek people’s views on whether or not it should take support from a party it fought against in the election.
That led to a unique five-day referendum where people were asked to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Kejriwal declared on Monday that a “majority … wanted us to form the government”.
Even as the first steps of government formation were taken, around 1,000 Congress activists protested against their party’s decision to support the AAP government.
To add to the confusion, AAP leader Kumar Vishwas made light of the Congress support but admitted that running the government amid uncertainty would be a “challenge”.
An engineer by training and a former Indian Revenue Service officer whose social activism won him the Ramon Magsaysay award, Kejriwal didn’t say who will be the new chief minister.
But his colleague Manish Sisodia said Kejriwal would hold the top post.
“We fought the elections under his leadership, and all the MLAs had selected him as the chief minister candidate,” said Sisodia, who is widely tipped to become a minister.
Meanwhile, attacking AAP’s decision to form a government in Delhi with Congress support, BJP said it has exposed Arvind Kejriwal-led party’s “hypocrisy and duplicity” in its claim to cleanse politics of corruption.
“An AAP-Congress government is a contradiction in itself. How can a party, which professed to cleanse Indian politics, form an alliance with the most corrupt political party in the world,” said BJP leader Harsh Vardhan on Monday in press statement following AAP’s announcement to go ahead with government formation.
Vardhan, who has dubbed AAP as a “B team” of Congress, predicted mid-term polls very soon saying he is confident that Congress “with its tradition of chicanery and corruption, will not allow AAP to perform and soon there will be mid-term polls.” (PTI)