NEW DELHI: Lieutenant Governor of Delhi VK Saxena has returned the proposal regarding the Singapore visit of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to attend the eighth World Cities Summit and WCS Mayors Forum’ and advised him to not attend a conference that is prima facie a conference of mayors not befitting attendance by a Chief Minister, said sources.
However, Kejriwal, in a letter, has declared that he would “go ahead” with the visit. “I humbly beg to differ with the advice of the Lieutenant Governor,” Kejriwal wrote in a response. “If the visit of each constitutional authority in our country were to be decided on the basis of what subjects fall within the jurisdiction of the authority, it would create a funny situation and a practical logjam.
Then, the Prime Minister would not be able to go anywhere because in most of his visits, he also discusses subjects which fall in state list and do not fall in his jurisdiction. Then, no CM would ever be able to make any visit anywhere in the world,” stated Kejriwal. Earlier on Sunday, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought permission to attend the World Cities Summit in Singapore. In his letter to PM, Kejriwal said,
“The government of Singapore has invited us to present the Delhi model at the global summit. During the summit, the Delhi model has to be presented in front of many big leaders of the world. Today the whole world wants to know about the Delhi model. This invitation is a matter of pride and honour for the country.”
Meanwhile the sources said that after having carefully studying the nature of the forum, the L-G pointed out that the conference will be covering different aspects of urban governance which in the case of Delhi are addressed by diverse civic bodies ranging from New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) apart from the Delhi government.
The Delhi BJP on Thursday welcomed Lt Governor V K Saxena’s decision to return a file on Arvind Kejriwal’s proposed Singapore visit and asked the chief minister to focus on solving problems in the city instead of “politicising” the issue.