Delhi elections 2015: AAP brings statehood back in focus - Times of India

NEW DELHI: Chief minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal, during his first meeting with the Prime Minister on Thursday, demanded full statehood for Delhi. With this, Kejriwal highlighted the intent of the new government to make Delhi's long-pending demand a priority. On Wednesday, too, Kejriwal had met home minister Rajnath Singh and raised the demand with him amid assurances by the Centre that it will fully cooperate with the new government in the state. But it needs to be seen how far this cooperation will go.

Statehood means control over land, police and law and order—all under central control right now. The new government is expected to take the demand to the state legislature by way of a resolution on statehood, and make a formal demand to the Centre. Once that happens, it will put the BJP-led NDA government's ambiguous position on the issue to test.

BJP had promised statehood during the Lok Sabha polls, but didn't even mention it in its vision document ahead of the assembly polls.

Clearly, had a BJP government come to power, the Centre could have continued to be non-committal on the issue. But with AAP in power, it may not be easy to bury the issue under the carpet.

The full statehood demand isn't new, with the first elected government led by BJP raising it in 1993. Thereafter, every government has taken different positions on the subject depending on its equation with the Centre. Before every election, BJP and Congress raised the issue in their manifestos but never walked the talk.

Between 1993 and 1998, the BJP-led Delhi government introduced three resolutions for full statehood that the assembly passed when Congress was in power at the Centre.

In 1998, the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government came to power. When BJP-led NDA government was at the Centre, a resolution for full statehood was again passed by the assembly and sent to the Centre. It took the shape of the Delhi Statehood Bill which was presented in both the Houses of Parliament and then referred to a standing committee. But nothing happened. Then in 2004, Congress-led UPA government came to power. Since then, the statehood issue took a backseat with Congress at the Centre and state.

In 2011, when the Dikshit government decided to trifurcate the municipal corporation and gain more control over its affairs, Centre-state relations became strained. Later, however, Dikshit softened her government's position, saying that Delhi was a special state and full statehood was not possible.

The Nirbhaya gangrape case in December 2012 yet again saw Dikshit complain about not having any control over police.

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