Arvind Kejriwal threatens to resign if Janlokpal bill is not passed

NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that his government would resign if it is prevented from introducing the state lokayukta bill, better known as the Janlokpal bill, or if it is not passed. The threat came after Congress and BJP demanded the resignation of Law Minister Somnath Bharti and prevented the House from functioning on Thursday.

“We are giving them (the opposition parties) enough rope. The government is not going resign if the House is disrupted tomorrow (Friday). We have waited for three years for this bill and we are willing to wait for a few more days. But if they defeat the motion to either introduce or pass the bill then we will (quit),” the Delhi CM told reporters after the first day of the assembly session.

The Delhi Assembly witnessed unprecedented chaotic scenes as BJP and Congress MLAs took turns to troop into the well of the House and break mikes demanding Bharti’s resignation over his midnight raid against African women, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House four times. The Speaker’s attempt at arriving at a resolution through an all-party meeting in the afternoon also failed.

Referring to the continuous disruptions in the House, Kejriwal implied that Congress and BJP were in cahoots. “Congress and BJP just pretend to be at loggerheads. Their brilliantly coordinated protest in the assembly today proves that they have always been in cahoots with each other,” he said.

Although the bill was not tabled on the first day of the session, the AAP government will go ahead with its plan to introduce it on Friday, despite the Union Law Ministry’s advisory that the decision to do so without the consent of the Lieutenant Governor was unconstitutional.

“We have carefully gone through the Constitution. Article 239AA of the Constitution does not say anywhere that the government needs prior approval for tabling bills in the assembly. The entire reference was to the Transaction of Business Rules (TBR) for the Delhi Assembly, 1993, prepared by the Union Home Ministry and sent to the Delhi government with the direction to implement them,” Kejriwal said.

He referred to Section 26, which according to him, clearly says if a bill is tabled and passed by the assembly an approval from the LG can be sought even after its passage. The CM referred to the lokayukta bill of Uttarakhand, which is closest to Delhi government’s Janlokpal bill. The four-day assembly session has been called for passage of the contentious anti-corruption legislation and Swaraj bill.