Why did the govt. not discuss graft in excise policy, construction of classrooms: BJP
Why did the govt. not discuss graft in excise policy, construction of classrooms: BJP
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The Delhi Assembly on Thursday passed a confidence motion tabled by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP chief said that it was proved that his party’s leaders “cannot be bought” and that ‘Operation Lotus’ had failed.
There were 58 votes in support of the motion. No vote was cast against the motion as none of the BJP MLAs was present during the proceedings.
AAP had called for the special Assembly session after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) raided the house of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and in light of AAP’s allegation about the BJP trying to buy its MLAs to topple the government as part of the BJP’s alleged “Operation Lotus”.
‘Operation Lotus’ failed
On August 29, Mr. Kejriwal tabled the motion in the Assembly, saying that it was meant to prove that ‘Operation Lotus’ may have been successful in other States but not in Delhi.
AAP has 62 MLAs in the 70-member Delhi Assembly with the remaining eight MLAs belonging to the BJP.
“The Speaker is in Canada, Naresh Balyan is in Australia, Satyendar Jain is in prison. Apart from them, 59 MLAs including the Deputy Speaker are present here,” Mr. Kejriwal said.
Hitting out at AAP, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta said Mr. Kejriwal had convened the Assembly session only to divert the public’s attention from the allegations levelled against the government and to talk about “mundane issues”.
‘Why not discuss graft’
“Why did the Kejriwal government not discuss burning issues such as Delhi’s pollution, water, electricity, dilapidated transport system, corruption in the (now-withdrawn) excise policy and in the construction of classrooms?” said Mr. Gupta.
The Delhi CM also expressed the likelihood of the Deputy CM’s arrest. Quoting the Deputy CM, Mr. Kejriwal said, “After the raids, [CBI] officials told Sisodia that while they didn’t recover anything, there was a lot of pressure on them to arrest him. Manishji said, ‘No worries. Just tell me the time. Whenever you want to arrest me, I’ll come.’”
In a veiled attack on the BJP, the AAP chief called it a “ kattar beimaan (staunchly corrupt)” party.
“Today, only two parties are present at the national level. One party is kattar imaandar (staunchly honest), the other is kattar beimaan. All the Ministers, MLAs and workers are honest in the kattar imaandar party. And there is news of corruption on a daily basis in the kattar beimaan party,” he said.
Mr. Kejriwal said 49 of AAP’s MLAs were implicated in 169 cases and of these, 134 cases have been shot down by courts.
