NEW DELHI: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday revived the idea of Swaraj — governance directly by the people.
One of the poll planks of the Aam Aadmi Party when it came into existence, Swaraj was supposed to be implemented after the AAP came to power, but the promise has remained on paper.
While speaking during an event at the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal said that at some point his government will try and implement a system wherein the public is involved directly in the functioning of the government.
Kejriwal and his party entered electoral politics six years ago and swept the 2014 Delhi assembly polls. Swaraj was one of the promises made by the party in its manifesto, and after coming to power the concept of ‘Mohalla Sabhas’ was adopted by the government, wherein people would sit with their local MLAs and decided on how government funds would be spent in their area.
“Every form of governance has loopholes, but universally, democracy is supposed to be the best form of governance. We practise an indirect form of governance in which the public has no role to play in day-to-day governance. In the indirect form of democracy, people do not have a say in where the funds are supposed to be spent,” Kejriwal said to students attending the first Youth Parliament held at the Delhi Assembly.
“Our dream is to implement this form of governance in Delhi. But the powers of Delhi are very limited, because of which we cannot create the model of a direct form of democracy,” added Kejriwal.