Prez refuses assent to Delhi govt Bill on Parliamentary Secy issue, AAP holds emergency meeting

AAP on Monday held an emergency meeting to deliberate on possible situation if 21 of its MLAs appointed as Parliamentary Secretary lose membership of the Delhi Assembly on the ground of holding office of profit as a city government brought Bill to give them immunity was rejected by the President.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal reacted sharply to the development and targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that he does not respect democracy and was only fearful of the AAP.

The meeting presided over by Kejriwal deliberated on President Pranab Mukherjee refusing to give assent to the Bill to exclude the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the office of profit. At the meeting, many AAP leaders were severely critical of the Centre as they said President rejected the Bill on the recommendation of the Modi government.

Kejriwal took to the twitter to express his anger. He said no MLA was given a single paisa, car or bungalow in their capacity as Parliamentary Secretary and said they were giving services for free.

“Modiji says all of you sit at home. Should not work,” he said adding MLAs were tasked to look after power supply, water supply, functioning of hospitals and schools. “Modiji says neither will work nor will allow to work,” Kejriwal said.

The refusal by the President to give assent to the bill puts a question mark over the membership of the 21 AAP MLAs, who were appointed Parliamentary Secretaries. The Delhi government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997 through which it had sought “retrospective” exemption for the parliamentary secretaries from disqualification provisions.

The Bill was forwarded by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung to the Centre, which in turn was sent to the President with its comments. Petitions have been filed with the President seeking disqualification of the these MLAs on the ground that they occupied office of profit in violation of Constitution. 

Acting as a quasi judicial body, the Election Commission to whom the President referred the issue has sought replies of the MLAs. The 21 MLAs include Alka Lamba, Jarnail Singh, Adarsh Shastri and Rajesh Gupta. The EC had earlier issued notices asking them to explain how their appointment as parliamentary secretaries does not fall under office of profit and why their Assembly membership should not be cancelled. 

The 21 AAP MLAs, facing the risk of disqualification from the Assembly on office of profit issue, have sought a personal hearing before the Election Commission. In their response to the poll body, the MLAs have said that parliamentary secretary is a post without any remuneration or power. A senior party functionary maintained that there was no “pecuniary benefit” associated with the post.