NEW DELHI: The Delhi Assembly on Friday saw a political slugfest between legislators of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with the former accusing the latter of violating the decorum of the House while the Lt. Governor was delivering his address.
BJP MLAs, on their part, alleged that CM Arvind Kejriwal was trying to ‘mislead’ Delhiites through the address which highlighted his government’s ‘good work’. AAP MLAs alleged that their counterparts from the BJP had disrupted the L-G’s speech and chanted slogans in the House. Following this, a resolution terming this as contempt of the House was passed unanimously and sent to the Ethics Committee.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “To obstruct the speech of the L-G and create a nuisance as he speaks is against the rules of the House and is a contempt of the House. Therefore, the members of the House have passed a proposal and have demanded that this issue be taken to an appropriate committee. The committee will look into the issue and take action on the matter,”
Cabinet minister Saurabh Bharadwaj emphasised that this matter concerns the sanctity of the House, and despite his party’s differences with the L-G, traditions must be upheld. However, the BJP narrated a contrasting version of the events and condemned the Speaker’s decision to marshall out three BJP MLAs – Jitendra Mahajan, Anil Bajpai and OP Sharma.
Ramveer Singh Bidhuri, Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Delhi Assembly, said, “AAP MLAs made indecent remarks on the national leaders of BJP in the Budget session. When BJP protested against this and demanded the dismissal of the corrupt Kejriwal government, then all BJP MLAs were marshalled out”.
The BJP MLAs raised slogans against the Kejriwal government in the Assembly premises, holding banners that read, “Corrupt Kejriwal, tender your resignation”. The Delhi unit of the BJP also took a dig at Kejriwal’s statement in which he referred to the L-G’s address and claimed that his government did unprecedented work in every field.
Its working president Virendra Sachdeva said that Kejriwal was like an opportunistic political chameleon who keeps changing political colours. “Till last night, the CM was running a political campaign against the L-G, but is today trying to mislead Delhiites by citing L-G’s Assembly address as proof of his government’s good work,” Sachdeva said.