Delhi Assembly elections: Najeeb Jung may soon take a call

NEW DELHI: The fate of Delhi is now in the hands of Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, with all parties publicly adopting the stance that they are ready for elections.

Delhi BJP President Satish Upadhyay met senior party leader and home minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday and apprised him of the situation. He is believed to have told Singh about the view of majority of the MLAs and their reluctance to go in for another elections so soon. Upadhyay hedged the issue after his meeting with the home minister and left it to the LG’s wisdom.

He told mediapersons that the party will take a call on government formation if the LG invites them. “No proposal has come to us as yet on government formation. Whatever will be done will be as per the Constitution. We will take a decision on government formation if such a proposal comes to us,” the newly-appointed Delhi BJP chief said.

The LG, who is in charge of administration of the Capital since February 14, said in an interview to a daily newspaper last week that he would call for elections the moment he was convinced that there was no possibility of any government being formed. Stating that elections were an expensive process, Jung had said that the city had been through two elections in the past six months and another election would stop the normal administration from functioning. A state can be under President’s rule for up to two years, with extensions every six months.

Expenses on the electoral process was one of the main reasons that was deterring all parties to go in for another elections. Also, neither BJP nor AAP was confident of getting a simple majority.

For the BJP, the MLAs were not sure how they could go back to the voters and explain why inflation had not been controlled and why certain subsidies needed to go. “The middle class can probably understand the need for tough measures.

But you cannot explain it to the economically weaker sections, and they are the real vote bank for AAP, along with the minorities,” claimed a BJP leader. However, BJP MLA from Rajinder Nagar RP Singh told ET that the party was not interested in cobbling up a majority but was gearing up for another elections.

Meanwhile, Kejriwal is scheduled to meet the LG on Monday along with his party MLAs on to reiterate their demand to dissolve the state assembly and hold fresh elections.