Parl passes Delhi Services Bill; 131 votes in favour, 102 against
New Delhi: Parliament on Monday passed a contentious Bill that gives the Central government control over bureaucrats in the Delhi government with the Rajya Sabha approving it with 131 votes in favour and 102 against.
Union Home minister Amit Shah defended the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023, saying the proposed legislation is aimed at providing effective and corruption-free governance in the national Capital.
The Union Home minister defended the ordinance alleging the AAP-led Delhi government transferred officers of the vigilance department as liquor scam files were with it.
“So much haste was shown concerning the vigilance department by the Delhi government because it had files related to ‘excise policy scam’ and ‘sheesh-mahal’,” he said.
Taking a swipe at Congress for joining hands with the Aam Aadmi Party, Shah said AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal will quit the opposition bloc INDIA once the Delhi Services Bill is passed. He said that the Bill has not been brought to impose “Emergency” or take away the rights of people.
Taking a swipe at the BJP shortly after the Bill was passed after an eight-hour long discussion, Kejriwal, in a televised address, said: “The BJP lost four polls against AAP, they have tried to usurp power in Delhi through backdoor.”
He added: “I want to thank all the political parties for supporting AAP against the Delhi Services Bill.”
Kejriwal said there is ‘no value’ left for the vote of the people of Delhi and PM Modi and Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena ‘will run the government of Delhi’.
He said: “The country elected you as the Prime Minister so that you would do the transfer posting of peons.” He also called the PM ‘arrogant’ and said: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so much arrogance that he neither listens to the public nor listens to the Supreme Court.”
“The Prime Minister had promised to make Delhi a full state. Today, he stabbed the people of Delhi in the back,” Kejriwal added. He said that BJP’s arrogance will cost them soon.
“People of Delhi will not give a single seat to BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,” Kejriwal said adding, that “the people of Delhi love the AAP government”.
Earlier, the opposition bloc INDIA and the BRS vehemently opposed the proposed legislation, saying it was unconstitutional, undemocratic and against the spirit of federalism.
With Naveen Patnaik’s BJD and the YSRCP supporting the Bill, the opposition pulled all stops, including bringing former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a wheelchair and an ailing Shibu Soren to the House, to shore up its numbers.
“Earlier, there were no fights over transfer postings in Delhi, no CMs had any problems…In 2015, a govt came up after an ‘Andolan’…Some people said the Centre wants to take power into its hands. The Centre doesn’t need to do so as the people of India have given us the power and the right,” Shah said.
Earlier in the day, AAP MP Raghav Chadha said the Bill is a “political fraud, constitutional sin and will create an administrative logjam”. Chadha said that the BJP had been demanding statehood for Delhi for almost 40 years and promised the same in its election manifesto. The AAP leader added that the BJP has destroyed the 40 years of hard work of its leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishan Advani to make Delhi a full state.
