Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is in ED custody. He has not yet left the post of Chief Minister. A constitutional crisis has arisen in Delhi. However, amid all this there is also discussion that Chief Minister Kejriwal can be removed from his post. The President can dismiss the Chief Minister on the recommendation of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi. Here BJP is afraid of backfire.
Political experts say that in the current circumstances, BJP will not take the risk of removing Kejriwal. The reason is that Kejriwal can get huge political benefit from this. If Aam Aadmi Party is successful in spreading Kejriwal’s message across the country, then AAP will get public sympathy in the Lok Sabha elections. BJP is understanding this, hence it is expecting from the court itself that sooner or later a decision may come that it is difficult to run the government from jail. In such a situation, pressure can be put on Kejriwal to leave the post of Chief Minister.
Aam Aadmi Party leaders say that this issue of putting Kejriwal in jail will be heavy on BJP. He will have to pay the price for this in the Lok Sabha elections. Delhi government minister Saurabh Bhardwaj says that people are angry that Kejriwal has been arrested for political reasons. Kejriwal’s wife Sunita herself has also claimed that ED has raided many places in the alleged liquor policy case. Not a single penny was recovered in these raids. ED raids the premises of AAP leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and Satyendar Jain. No money was found here also. The Chief Minister’s residence was raided, but only Rs 73,000 was found here. Sunita Kejriwal questioned where the money of ‘so called liquor scam’ is.
Former Assembly Secretary and constitutional expert SK Sharma, who has worked with four Chief Ministers in Delhi, says, the Constitution is silent on this matter. The government does not run from jail. It is not written anywhere in the Constitution that the head of the government should go to jail and the government should continue from there. This has never happened before in the country. There are many such works for which the presence of the Chief Minister is mandatory. In the current situation, if Kejriwal does not leave the post of Chief Minister, then the government is left with the only option of dismissing him. This entire process is completed by the Union Home Ministry.
This is a constitutional crisis. The Chief Minister is in jail and is not leaving his post. According to Sharma, there is a moral aspect in this too, but no one is caring about it. On behalf of Chief Minister Kejriwal, his ministers are saying that we have complete majority. When there is majority, why should the Chief Minister resign? In such a situation, there is only one way that according to the law, the Chief Minister should be dismissed. There is such a provision in Article 239AA. The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi should write to the President that Chief Minister Kejriwal is not leaving his post. In such a situation the President can remove him from the post. In case he does not step down, the last option left is President’s rule.
Political expert Rashid Kidwai says, in the current circumstances, BJP will not take the risk of removing Kejriwal. He knows that this issue can backfire in the Lok Sabha elections. If Kejriwal is removed, he may get a lot of sympathy from the people. BJP will wait for the court’s decision in this matter. However, workers of both AAP and BJP are on the streets.
BJP workers are demanding the removal of Kejriwal, while AAP workers, on the other hand, are protesting against the arrest of Chief Minister Kejriwal. Atishi, a minister in the AAP government, says that Arvind Kejriwal will remain the Chief Minister of Delhi. Whether they stay inside or outside the jail. AAP ministers claimed that Kejriwal was giving them orders from jail itself. In such a situation, BJP will not take the risk of removing Kejriwal. Kidwai says, there have been many leaders in the past who were sent to jail before the elections, but they achieved great success in politics. Lalu Prasad Yadav and Jayalalitha have been examples of this.