Ajay Maken EXCLUSIVE: ‘Kejriwal wants control over Vigilance to stall probe against AAP govt’

While the Congress is yet to decide where it stands on support to the AAP on the Ordinance issue when it is taken up in Parliament in the next session, Ajay Maken explains in an exclusive interview to Financial Express Online why he speaks in favour of the Central Ordinance and why regional parties should stop weakening the Congress if they care about Opposition unity.

Here are Edited excerpts from the interview:

Congress leaders from Delhi, Punjab recently met the Congress leadership and asked them not to support the Aam Aadmi Party on the Delhi services ordinance issue whereas AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has sought time from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former MP Rahul Gandhi. Where does the party stand?

As far as the party stand is concerned, I am not the right person to answer that. But there are three aspects to this. First, is meeting Kejriwal or not; second is the stand of the Congress party on the Ordinance; and third is the alliance issue. So we need to keep these three separate.

Meeting Kejriwal does not mean giving support on the Ordinance issue that he has raised, and meeting and supporting the Ordinance issue does not mean an alliance.

So far, I am unaware of any stand that the party has taken on these three issues. But there is still time as this is not time-bound. There is still time for the party to take a stand. An appropriate decision will be taken at an appropriate time.

Former Finance minister, P Chidambaram, on Monday told reporters at a press conference in Mumbai that the Ordinance is wrong. It appears that the party is divided on the issue.

We first must understand this from the viewpoint of Congress leaders from Delhi, Punjab, Assam, Gujarat, Goa and Uttarakhand. These are the places from where the AAP has contested against the Congress party to help the BJP. On one hand you contest against our candidates and on the other you ask for our support. How is it possible?

Coming to the (former) Finance minister’s statement, he comes from Tamil Nadu which does not have the BJP in power. Although the Congress has its presence in the state. And AAP enters only such states where there is the Congress and the BJP and it helps the BJP by diminishing the Congress party. That has been their stand and that is the reason why I am speaking about all these states. These are the states where the AAP has helped the Opposition party by diminishing the Congress. By Opposition, I mean like in Delhi they have helped the BJP. The BJP has won all seven Lok Sabha seats ever since AAP came into existence. So this is something that one must understand and that is why it becomes important to listen to leaders in states where AAP is directly impacting the Congress party. This is the political aspect.

Second is a policy and administration aspect. As far as the policy and administration aspect is concerned, what Kejriwal is asking for was refused by the Manmohan Singh government to former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit. Even Chidambaram refused Dikshit when he was the Home minister.

Is Kejriwal challenging established governance norms?

The power of services has never been given to Delhi. And this is not now. It is ever since Delhi was formed and ever since it was debated.

In October 1947, when Babasaheb Ambedkar submitted his first report on what should be done with Delhi, he categorically mentioned that Delhi being a place that would be the national capital, the local government cannot be given all powers. The most important powers have to be with the central government because it is the national capital.

So, when Kejriwal talks about cooperative federalism he is misleading people because cooperative federalism does not apply to Delhi as it is the national capital.

Delhi is not only owned by citizens of the national capital but owned by people across the country. And in 1956, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru abolished the (Delhi) Assembly and made it into a municipal corporation. He said that Delhi does not need an Assembly, Delhi should just have a municipal corporation despite all Delhi leaders at that time demanding a full Assembly.

Pt Nehru overruled all Delhi leaders and said Delhi should not have any legislative powers. The same was decided by Lal Bahadur Shastri first as Home minister in 1965 and then as PM in 1966. The Metropolitan Council of Delhi Act was passed by Parliament and Delhi was just given a debating forum of a metropolitan council by Shastri. The metropolitan council was headed by a chief executive councillor.

So, Delhi at that time did not even have ministers or chief ministers. Time and again, this has been something that has been debated and discussed at the highest level.

In February 2014, Kejriwal for political reasons lodged an FIR against the then Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily and Mukesh Ambani in Delhi, saying they have cheated people. So imagine the power of the Delhi CM because of the jurisdiction of the national capital. And if powers of vigilance are given to the Chief Minister, he can lodge an FIR against the Prime Minister as well. That is why no one in the past gave power of services because it is not just about transfers and postings. Kejriwal won’t be keen on transfers and posting. How does it matter to him if Officer A comes or if Officer B comes? He is more interested in taking control over the vigilance department because now, at this moment, Vigilance probe is going on in the liquorgate scam, vigilance probe is going on in his house scam — how did he spend Rs 171 crore building his lavish house? Vigilance is also looking into the power subsidy scam.

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As the vigilance department is looking into the many scams and the many complaints against his government, he wants control over it so that the inquiries which are being conducted by the department are stopped.

Since this is a very important policy, that is why I have taken a firm stand. I have also conveyed all these points to AICC leaders.

Congress leaders have been attacking parties like the AAP and the Trinamool Congress for poaching the party’s MLAs. Does it not cast a shadow on Opposition unity?

The responsibility for Opposition unity does not lie only with the Congress party. When anybody thinks about Opposition unity, the main reason is that we have to take on the BJP in a strong manner. BJP is a national party and so is the Congress. But you can’t have a weakened national opposition party, and a weakened Congress and then take on the BJP. Alliance partners cannot first weaken Congress and then think of taking on the BJP. If you have to take on the BJP then you have to ensure that there is a strong national Opposition party to which all the other smaller regional parties align.

What is happening is that some of these so-called alliance partners are weakening the Congress party. In Punjab, our MP Santokh Singh from Jalandhar died during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. That was a seat that the AAP could not win in the last Assembly elections when it won 92 out of the 117 seats. That was the only seat where AAP did not have a lead over the Congress. Since we had a sitting MP for long, we gave the ticket to his wife for the Jalandhar by-election.

Since the AAP did not have a good candidate to contest against the Congress candidate, they took away ex-Congress MLA Sushil Kumar Rinku and fielded him from Jalandhar. Rinku won by 50,000 votes against his closest rival Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary, the Congress candidate who is the widow of Santokh Singh.