New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal Monday staked a claim to form a new government, a fortnight after Delhi elected a hung assembly.
AAP’s political affairs committee met on Monday morning and decided to accept the Congress party’s offer of outside support to form the government in line with the wishes expressed by majority of the residents of the metropolis.
Kejriwal later called on Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung to formally stake the claim to form the government and requested that the swearing in ceremony be held at Jantar Mantar, the site where he, along with his erstwhile mentor Anna Hazare, waged a battle against corruption.
According to sources, the swearing in ceremony is expected to take place on Thursday at Ramlila Ground which can accommodate a large crowd expected to attend the ceremony.
Jung was scheduled to meet President Pranab Mukherjee late on Monday evening to inform him of the development and request him to revoke his earlier notification to keep the newly elected Delhi state legislative assembly in suspense, paving the way for formation of the new government.
Kejriwal who was projected as AAP’s chief ministerial candidate and later elected its legislative party leader said: “I am not becoming the chief minister of Delhi but the common man is becoming the chief minister.”
AAP’s decision to form the government has ended all speculation about imposition of President’s rule in Delhi. While the tenure of the previous assembly expired on December 18, the federal home ministry announced it would wait until AAP took a decision on Delhi Lt Governor’s invitation to form the new government before recommending President’s rule.
Kejriwal had met Jung on December 14 and requested 10 days’ time to get back to him. AAP used the time to seek the views of the people on whether to accept Congress party’s offer of outside support through SMS and Internet besides direct meetings with people. AAP said that it received a total of 697,310 responses. After removing the duplicate IDs and numbers, the total votes came down to 523,183 of which 265,966 were from Delhi. Of them 197,086 (74 per cent) favoured AAP government in Delhi.
Kejriwal had formed AAP in October last year after breaking away from anticorruption crusader Anna Hazare who rejected Kejriwal’s idea of converting the movement into a political party. The party took everyone by surprise as it ended up winning 28 seats in the 70-member assembly, just three seats less than the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the hung assembly. Being the single largest party, BJP got the first invite to form the government. It, however, rejected the offer saying it did not have the majority support.
The Congress party, which ruled Delhi for 15 years and ended up winning just eight seats, however, offered its outside support to AAM in its bid to prevent re-poll, which both BJP and AAP wanted.
AAP’s Monday decision is a complete reversal of its earlier stand that it would neither offer nor take support of any other party. The party, however, faced pressure from its newly-elected Delhi lawmakers, who were not ready for re-poll option. The AAP’s top leadership also felt later on that re-election would hamper the party’s national plans in the upcoming general elections.
AAP, however, is sceptical of the Congress party, which has a dubious record of propping up minority governments and pulling them down at a time convenient to them.
“Given the past track record of the Congress party, I don’t expect that our government will survive for long,” senior AAP leader Prashant Bhushan said.
The Congress party smarting under its massive defeat has already given signals that helping AAP run the government is not their best option. The party has already amended its offer and now says the support to AAP is not unconditional. Sheila Dikshit who was chief minister of Delhi for 15 years and was defeated by Kejriwal in her New Delhi constituency by over 25,000 votes clarified that their offer was not unconditional. “I wish AAP good luck and now it is their turn to fulfil all the promises they made in their manifesto,” Dikshit said.
AAP has made several promises including reducing electricity rates by half and free supply of 700 litres of water per household per day which many feel may not be easy to implement.
