Centre Must Stop Targeting The Delhi Government
The India Commentary view
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By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2023-03-22 09:57:23
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The India Commentary view
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The Aam
Aadmi Party government in Delhi-NCR has always been a special target for the
Centre, either directly or through the Lieutenant Governor, and the BJP. There
have been many spats in the past and even the Supreme Court was involved in
some matters. But the latest incident - that of the LG and the Ministry of Home
Affairs (MHA) delaying the go-ahead for presenting the budget of the territory - was disturbing. As per the previously announced programme, the budget was to be
presented on Tuesday and the Delhi government had submitted the papers - as required
by law - to the office of LG V K Saxena in time. But first the LG took his own
sweet time in sending the same to the MHA and then the MHA delayed giving the
customary permission. The permission is just a formality mandated by law and
this is a rare instance of such a delay. It should not have happened.
An elected
government must be allowed to work as per law and if it needs permission from
other constitutional authorities, such permission, except in extraordinary
circumstances (and even then the reasons for the delay must be made public),
must be granted without any delay. The constitutional duty of the LG in Delhi
is to facilitate the governance of the territory by the elected government and
not place hurdles in its path. But successive LG's in Delhi, ever since the NDA
came to power at the Centre and AAP in Delhi, have been either sitting on files
or denying permission in an outright manner. It is no one's case that the LG
has to permit all activities and permission can be denied if the law so
permits. But in many cases, it is being seen that this is not the case and
delays and objections are mainly to place unnecessary hurdles. This confrontationist
attitude must stop.
