Who Governs Delhi?

In several cases, the Supreme Court has observed that the governor or lieutenant governor cannot override the chief minister in parliamentary democracy but the Delhi lieutenant governor has now become the master of the chief minister who will have to plead before him for getting approval of his policies and decisions

- Dr Lokendra Malik

WHEN the people of Delhi are suffering from the tsunami of Covid-19 and they need the government’s support to save their lives and livelihoods, the Narendra Modi government has implemented an unconstitutional transfer of power in the national capital against a popular mandate. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has notified the enforcement of the Government of NCT of Delhi (Amendment) Act 2021 a few days ago under which the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) has assumed the authority of the “Government of Delhi”. Now, Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues will need the approval of the L-G before taking any decision or announcing any policy or programme for the welfare of the people of Delhi. In a practical sense, the Modi government has reduced Delhi to a union territory. This is nothing but a fraud with the people of Delhi who had voted in favour of a political party to run the administration in Delhi a few years ago in the hope of getting a full statehood for Delhi.

Sadly, the central government has used its parliamentary majority to butcher popular ambitions and snatch power from an elected government that has legislative support. Not only this, the transfer of power also goes against the 2018 verdict of the Supreme Court that had given a free hand to the Kejriwal government to run the Delhi administration without knocking on the doors of the L-G in every case. The amended NCT Act dilutes the Supreme Court’s judgment as well as the basic spirit of our parliamentary democracy that allows the popularly elected persons to run the government.