It was a simple tweet that brought back to life, the latent war between the major political parties of Delhi. The initiator of yet another debate was the 'Muffler Man' as expected.
"Tomorrow Modi ji addresses Delhi. He had promised full statehood to Delhi. Will he announce that tomorrow? Or will BJP do a U-turn on this issue also?" wrote Arvind Kejriwal on micro blogging site Twitter on Friday morning to restart the debate on Delhi’s statehood. The BJP has been at the forefront of this demand, but has been silent on it over the past few months.
AAp convener Arvind Kejriwal. Firstpost
Though Delhi had chief ministers in the 1950s but the position was abolished in 1956, it was only during the first NDA regime that it was granted statehood in 1993 when Madan Lal Khurana became the chief minister. Apart from Delhi, Puducherry is the only other Union Territory that enjoys partial statehood where there is an assembly and elected chief minister rather than just a Lieutenant Governor appointed by the Centre. In order to counter Sheila Dikshit-led Congress before the 2003 polls, the BJP had tabled the State of Delhi Bill, 2003, by LK Advani that proposed full statehood through a new Article 371-J, in the Constitution. The Bill was referred to a Committee while Sheila went on to win the election and NDA was voted out of power in 2004 pushing the Bill back to oblivion.
While the BJP has been sitting pretty in the state after the ruling NDA doled out various largesse in the Delhi budget keeping in mind the upcoming election, the demand for statehood may be a cause of worry for the BJP that is hoping to form a government on its own. After a strong showing by the Aam Aadmi Party in the December 2013 assembly elections, the BJP had made it a point to bring in the promise of granting full statehood to Delhi during the 2014 general elections.
"The first issue that we will take up with our prime minister will be that of granting full-statehood for Delhi," Union Cabinet Minister Harsh Vardhan had said after sweeping all seven seats in Delhi this May. He had promised the same when he was Delhi BJP chief during the 2013 assembly elections.
Though BJP’s Delhi leadership has been pressing home the point for statehood, it is unlikely that NDA can grant the same in its current form. The bone of contention is the control of Law and Order with the Delhi Police reporting to home ministry and land under the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) that reports to urban development ministry. Even though Sheila Dikshit was in power for 15 years (1998-2013), she was not able to convince the Centre about the need for full statehood to Delhi. The UPA was in power for nine years when the Congress ruled both Delhi and the Centre, yet no solution was in sight.
"Granting full statehood to Delhi is non sequitur. It is simply not possible to give control of law and order due to security concerns and movement of VIP’s," says Mathew Vilayasseril, executive director at Centre for Market Research and Social Development (CMSD). "Centre may be able to give DDA (land) to Delhi Government, but anyone promising full statehood to Delhi is nothing more than an idea that cannot be executed," he adds.
Sheila had asked for Delhi Traffic Police to be handed over to the state government along with DDA, but it was rejected by the Centre.
Though the NDA regime has done U turns on many issues right from bringing back black money to making public Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s classified files, this is one issue where the AAP is unlikely to let go of them. Till now AAP has not managed to corner the BJP in Delhi where they are banking solely on PM Modi’s persona to sail through, but AAP convener has played his cards right. He has thrown the gauntlet to Narendra Modi and his "larger than life" image over the issue of statehood to Delhi. It has put the BJP is a similar position as the Congress’ in 2013 and it will be interesting to see BJP’s response to the bait thrown by Kejriwal from Ramlila Maidan on Saturday.
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