PM unable to digest Delhi defeat: Kejriwal

“Our Parliamentary Secretaries don’t get a penny, still everyone is after them and Modiji wants to disqualify them. If he wants to disqualify, then all the Parliamentary Secretaries in the country should be disqualified,” Kejriwal told the media. 

“I want to ask Modiji is he not allowing the Delhi government to function because he is unable to digest defeat in Delhi,” Kejriwal asked.

He listed states ruled by the BJP or its allies to also ask, “Haryana, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat and others have Parliament Secretaries too; Why is Modiji only behind disqualifying Delhi’s Parliament Secretaries?” He said the reason behind the Central government’s move was that Modi was scared of the AAP. The BJP and the Congress tried to corner the AAP, which trounced both the parties in February 2015 by winning 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly. 

Meanwhile, senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said other states like Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh ruled by the BJP too had Parliamentary Secretaries but the Modi government was opposed to the idea only in Delhi.

Through the Amendment Bill, the AAP government wanted “retrospective” exemption for the Parliamentary Secretaries from disqualification provision.

The matter was referred by the President’s office to the central government, Law Ministry and the Election Commission, official sources said.

AAP sources said there had been no showcause notice or any other communication to the 21 legislators from the Election Commission. 

“We will act and react whenever we get any communication from the Election Commission,” an AAP leader said. On March 13, 2015, the Delhi government had passed an order appointing the 21 party MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries. 

The 21 are Alka Lamba, Praveen Kumar, Sharad Kumar, Adarsh Shastri, Madan Lal, Shiv Charan Goel, Sanjeev Jha, Sarita Singh, Naresh Yadav, Jarnail Singh (Tilak Nagar), Rajesh Gupta, Anil Kumar Bajpai, Som Dutt, Avtar Singh, Vijender Garg, Jarnail Singh (Rajouri Garden), Kailash Gahlot, Manoj Kumar, Nitin Tyagi, Rajesh Rishi and Sukhbir Singh Dalal.