Kejriwal Gets Cops From Bihar, Unmoved as Lt Governor and MHA Protest

NEW DELHI: The spat continues. In a dramatic move Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal approached Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to borrow police personnel for his Anti Corruption Bureau. Three inspectors and two sub-inspectors of the Delhi police have been dispatched post haste to Delhi with Lt Governor Najeeb Jung insisting that his sanction should have been secured.

The Aam Aadmi government is unmoved. “We are completely within our jurisdiction,” AAP leader Ashutosh told The Citizen. He said that the requisition was within the law.

“Why elect a government then in Delhi if it has no authority at all,” Ashutosh asked, stressing a point being made by several AAP supporters across the city.

He was clear that the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Modi government was worried about the Anti-Corruption Bureau. “If you remember they opposed the Jan LokPal legislation, it is the same thing now as they do not want the anti-corruption drive to become strong,” he said.

Kejriwal had earlier said in the Assembly that the notification by MHA giving more powers to the Lt Governor was part of an “experiment” to take the country towards “dictatorship.” He had written to the Chief Ministers of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal at the time, saying that the central government’s support for the Lt Governor went against the federal structure of the country and could affect them as well.

The Delhi government has claimed the powers to probe central government personnel, a move opposed by the Lt Governor who was backed by a notification by the MHA. The matter is now in the Delhi High Court that is expected to adjudicate on the jurisdiction of the Lt Governor and the Delhi government after the vacations.

The Bharatiya Janata party also attacked the Delhi CM for bringing in policemen from Bihar without MHA sanctions. BJP leader Harish Khurana said, “I feel that Arvind Kejriwal and his party, instead of working for the development of the city, have gotten into the habit of finding new controversies every day. Right now, the courts are still deliberating on under whose jurisdiction the Anti-Corruption Bureau shall come. Has he kept the Home Ministry or the LG in confidence while making the decision?”

Kejriwal is shaking the status quo, and moving the courts to decide on the actual powers of the Delhi government in a bid to bring the issue out of the grey into the black and white realm. Currently it is the MHA view against the Delhi government decision about the police officers, with the courts now expected to interpret the Constitution and the law on this issue.

Interestingly AAP leaders did not want to read “opposition unity” into the fine lines of the Bihar and Delhi cooperation on this front. “We have not thought about all this as yet,” Ashutosh said adding that “we think Nitish Kumar is a good, honest, clean leader.” How this would translate in the political field was a guess that he was not willing to hazard at this stage.