Image Courtesy:haribhoomi.com
“Must be the first time in the last 75 years that the Central Government has written to the Election Commission forcing it to defer elections,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said responding to the postponement of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections by the Election Commission. Kejriwal alleged that the EC postponed the MCD election dates under pressure from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre, who he said was “scared of an AAP sweep”.
Kejriwal said the postponement of the announcement of the dates was “unprecedented, unconstitutional, and bad for democracy.” State Election Commissioner SK Srivastava was scheduled to announce the dates for the MCD polls at a press conference at 5 P.M on March 9. However, Srivastava told the media that the announcement was deferred, “I have received some communication from the central government at 4.30 PM, so I am not able to announce the dates right now.”
According to Kejriwal, the “postponement was done soon after the Centre wrote to the EC, asking it to defer the polls as it wanted to combine the three municipal corporations — North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation and the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.”
Forcing EC to cancel elections is unprecedented, unconstitutional and bad for democracy. Press Conference | LIVE https://t.co/IPKrtfeJuK
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) March 11, 2022
The Delhi CM, and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener said, “People are saying, the excuse of merging the three MCDs is a mere farce; the real reason is that BJP wants to postpone elections… BJP knows that AAP’s wave is taking over the country, the anticipation is that it will drown in the wave once MCD elections take place.” Kejriwal said that he was appealing “to the Prime Minister with folded hands to not cancel the elections; this poses a huge threat to our democracy,” adding, “Leaders like Kejriwal or the PM are not important; what matters is this country, its people and is values which should not be infringed upon at any cost.”
The Delhi CM asked, “What pressure is the State Election Commissioner under? What threat or greed can be bigger the greater good of the country?” He demanded that the “State Election Commissioner must come out in the open and narrate to the public the pressure he is going through; I am sure the whole country will protect him,” as this was for the “first time in the last 75 years that the Central Government has written to the Election Commission, forcing it to defer elections.”
The AAP, which has just won the Punjab Assembly elections with a massive mandate, is confident it will repeat its performance in the MCD elections and that “the BJP will drown in the same [AAP] wave.” Kejriwal recalled in his public statement released on march 11 that, “MCD elections were round the corner uptil now. They were supposed to be announced on March 9. The Delhi Election Commission sent a press invitation on the morning of March 9, saying that it will announce the MCD poll dates at 5 PM in the evening. They were supposed to notify all dates related to nomination, withdrawal and the guidelines in that regard. But, right before the presser, around 4 PM, the Centre wrote a letter to the EC asking them to defer the polls because they apparently want to merge the three MCDs.”
Kejriwal has alleged that the “EC buckled under pressure and announced during the press conference that it is deferring the polls” and this move he says has “raised concern amongst the people of Delhi.”He said, “They have started to worry about their democratic systems even while being the residents of the national capital. They want to know the reasons why the BJP-led Central Government did not merge the MCDs in the last 7-8 years of being in power. They want to know the reason behind such a cowardly move one hour before the election declaration. Did they think of merging the MCD at the very last moment?”
According to him the intention is “not the merger but the postponement of the polls” and “what the Central Government has done should not have happened had they any respect for our democracy. The Election Commission mustn’t have succumbed to the pressure mounted by the Centre. These events aren’t merely unfortunate but unbelievable in the modern day context.”
He asked that Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervene in the matter and not cancel the MCD elections, “What if some party in the future asks to cancel elections because they want to amend our parliamentary system into a presidential one? Can we let this happen? Can we as citizens let elections be cancelled because the ruling party wants to merge two states before their elections? Mr Prime Minister, there will be no Kejriwal and no Modi in the future. Don’t do this to our country, don’t ruin our democracy for political goals.”
Kejriwal asked if the State Election Commissioner was “threatened by the ED, CBI, Income Tax or did he face some bigger threat? He is supposed to retire in April. Was he lured with some post-retirement roles to be compromised in such a manner? How could he agree to postpone elections within just one hour?”
Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lashed out at Kejriwal. First Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi said, “Such allegations on principal institutions (EC) do not seem gracious. I’d like to ask Kejriwalji, can any city survive without a municipal corporation? As he has now started the process of removing municipalities.” This was followed by Union Minister Smriti Irani who questioned Chief Minister Kejriwal on “why MCD funds were stopped for seven years?” She alleged that “money for parks, hospitals and community centres was stopped” and that Kejriwal “deprived MCD of Rs 13,000 crore” and also “deliberately stopped” the money for development works and salaries of the sanitation workers. She also ridiculed the AAP, for its loss in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections saying, “It is ridiculous that the Aam Aadmi Party which forfeited its deposit in 55 out of 70 seats in Uttarakhand and got only 6% votes in Goa, the leader of that party Arvind Kejriwal Ji is the leader of the country is taking a dig at the chief servant. Kejriwal himself will be present in protest against the reforms of the corporation in Delhi, which perhaps the citizens of Delhi would never have imagined.”
The war of words has only just begun.
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