NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly on Thursday passed a confidence motion tabled by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The Delhi Legislative Assembly passed a confidence motion in favour of the government in Delhi on Thursday. The motion, tabled by the chief minister, was passed with 58 votes in its support by AAP MLAs. No vote was cast against it.
Speaker Ram Niwas Goel and Naresh Balyan remained absent from the House due to their visits to Canada and Australia, respectively. Satyendra Jain is behind bars while Rakhi Birla could not vote as she presided over the House as deputy chair to the speaker. The AAP has a strength of 62 seats in the Delhi assembly.
The BJP-led opposition did not take part in the proceedings. Three of the BJP’s were expelled from the assembly for the current session after an argument with deputy speaker Rakhi Birla as she did not consider their demand to call attention notices before a discussion on the motion.
Reacting to it, the rest of the party MLAs walked out of the assembly soon after. A special session was convened to carry out the confidence motion. The House is now adjourned indefinitely. In his address to the House post the motion, CM Kejriwal called the result a failure of “Operation Lotus”, asserting it as proof that “BJP can’t buy AAP’s people.”
“The confidence motion was meant to prove that the BJP’s Operation Lotus may have been successful in other states but it failed in Delhi. Today we proved to the country that you (BJP) can’t buy AAP’s people. They could not buy even one MLA,” he said. “We fear no one.” Our MLAs refuse to be bought by anyone,” Kejriwal added.
The AAP leader said that the cases filed by central agencies on allegations of scams, involving the excise policy and the education department would eventually help the party gain votes in the Gujarat assembly elections.
“The BJP is investigating every place where AAP has done good work. Our vote share is up by 4 per cent in Gujarat since the raid on Sisodia. It will go up to 6 per cent when he’s arrested,” he stated.
“Fake cases have been registered against Sisodia. The CBI raided Sisodia’s residence, went to his village and probed his bank locker, but found nothing,” Kejriwal added.
BJP refrains from vote
The BJP-led opposition did not take part in the proceedings. Three of the BJP’s were expelled from the assembly for the current session after an argument with deputy speaker Rakhi Birla as she did not consider their demand to call attention notices before a discussion on the motion