Arvind Kejriwal is tilting at the wrong windmill. The media has made his fight a personality clash between an elected Chief Minister and an unelected Lt Governor, Najeeb Jung, but things are not so simple. Kejriwal should know this: the law under which Delhi was converted into a state is the main villain of the piece, not Jung.
So, while Kejriwal is right in principle to demand the right to appoint his own bureaucrats, the constitution gives Jung the effective power in many areas. Unlike the central government and other states, where the elected government is the real power and the President or Governors mere titular heads who are bound by the advice of the council of ministers, in Delhi the Lt Governor (LG) is also the executive authority in many domains.
Under Article 239AA and AB of the constitution, the Lt Governor has more discretionary power than normal Governors in other states. In Delhi, the areas where the CM can act and where the Lt Governor can act independently are clearly demarcated. As former Delhi Chief Secretary SK Sharma told The Economic Times (19 May), "in the case of Delhi, the LG is not bound by the advice of Kejriwal and his ministers."
Article 239 (AA and AB), which deals with special provisions involving Delhi, make this quite clear (read the relevant portion of the constitution here
Clause 4 under this article says: "There shall be a Council of Ministers consisting of not more than 10 percent of the total number of members in the Legislative Assembly, with the Chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Lieutenant Governor in the exercise to his functions in relation to matters with respect to which the Legislative Assembly has power to make laws, except in so far as he is, by or under any law, required to act in his discretion.”
Note the above portion in italics. The Lt Governor can decide many things without reference to the Chief Minister in some cases.
Clause 4 further says:
"Provided that in the case of difference of opinion between the Lieutenant Governor and his Ministers on any matter, the Lieutenant Governor shall refer it to the President for decision and act according to the decision given thereon by the President and pending such decision it shall be competent for the Lieutenant Governor in any case where the matter, in his opinion, is so urgent that it is necessary for him to take immediate action, to take such action or to give such direction in the matter as he deems necessary.”
This is the clause Najeeb Jung relied on when he appointed an acting Chief Secretary for Delhi without Kejriwal's consent. Kejriwal should read the law carefully instead of trying to achieve his purpose by maligning the appointee.
The above clause clearly says that Jung can act on his own when there is a difference of opinion, in which case he can consult the President (meaning the central government, since the President does not have discretion in this matter at the centre). The Lt Governor can thus act no his own, or in consultation with the centre, when he "deems (it) necessary.”
Kejriwal is right to press for a change, but he also has to follow the law. He cannot build grandiose rules for himself on his own. Moreover, he should know his real place in the hierarchy of things: Delhi as a city-state is not like other states. Kejriwal's position is really mayor of Delhi.
There are two good reasons for this power skew in favour of the Lt Governor as against the elected government in Delhi.
First, Delhi is the seat of the national government, and hence formal control is divided between city government and the centre. If Kejriwal wants full powers to run his state, he effectively is asking for a physical bifurcation of Delhi,with the non-capital areas of Delhi being ruled by the CM of Delhi, and the home ministry running the areas housing the central government's offices, residential places, the cantonment, and the diplomatic enclaves.
Kejriwal is also being foolish if he thinks he can rule over areas that belong to the centre. If he really believes he should be ruler of all areas called Delhi, he should ask the Uttar Pradesh and Haryana government too to cede control over the portion of the national capital region (NCR) that also constitutes metropolitan Delhi. He will be laughed out of court by Messrs Akhilesh Yadav and BL Khattar.
Second, Delhi is a city-state, like Mumbai or Bengaluru or Kolkata. Its real powers are thus municipal in nature. Kejriwal should ideally be called the Mayor of Delhi – an empowered mayor, no doubt - and not its Chief Minister. This is not an argument for reducing his job profile to titular head, but to point out that his real job is to run the municipality.
The Delhi CM's powers are, in fact, not much different from those of elected governments in other metros. In the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, the real powerhouse is the state government-appointed municipal commissioner, and not the elected government. The ruling Sena-BJP in the municipal corporation runs various committees, but it is the municipal commissioner who presents the budgets and executes it. The elected mayor gets a nice house on the seafront and is available for cutting inaugural ribbons and garlanding Shivaji statues, but he/she has no real executive power.
Kejriwal in Delhi, on the other hand, has far more power than the elected governments of Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai or Kolkata. But he still has to kowtow to his "municipal commissioner" - a.k.a. the Lt Governor of Delhi.
The moral of the story is thus simple. We have to empower our city-states more, and this includes Arvind Kejriwal's Delhi and the Sena-BJP Mumbai or the Brihat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike or the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
Kejriwal's right is the same as that of any municipal corporation head. He needs more powers to run his city well. He can call himself CM, but running a city-state is not the same as running a diverse state.
He has to understand this basic difference and campaign for more municipal powers along with India's other big cities. It is only his megalomania that prevents him from recognising this and having a working relationship with the Lt Governor.
Silly aaptards.
