In a major setback to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi Service Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha on Monday with 131 votes in favour..
After the passage of the bill, the Delhi CM lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that the Government of NCT of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023, was an attempt to snatch governance through ‘back door’.
“They (BJP) know it is very difficult to defeat the AAP in Delhi. They have lost four elections…It has been over 25 years since a BJP government was formed in Delhi. They realised that it is difficult to defeat the AAP so they have tried to snatch the governance of Delhi through the chor darwaza (back-door robbery),” he said.
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Calling it a ‘black day’ for the national capital, in a video address soon after the Parliament cleared the bill, Kejriwal accused PM Modi of stripping Delhi of its freedom and compared the bill with the Government of India Act enacted by the British in 1935.
Arvind Kejriwal claimed that citizens of Delhi had made it clear to the BJP not to interfere in the functioning of Delhi by giving it just 3 seats in 2015 and 7 seats in the 2020 Assembly elections.
“However, PM Modi did not listen to the people of Delhi. Such is the level of arrogance that he refuses to listen even to the Supreme Court,” he said.
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The Delhi CM took to X (formerly Twitter) and thanked former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and JMM President Shibu Soren for coming to vote against the Delhi services bill “despite their health circumstances”.
Moreover, AAP MP Raghav Chadha said that the Delhi government will fight against the Delhi services bill in court, expressing confidence in getting a decision in their favour.
Delhi Service Bill
The BJP-led central government had brought an ordinance on the transfer and posting of bureaucrats in Delhi in May, negating a Supreme Court verdict giving the elected government in the national capital the control over services.
The Centre on May 19 introduced the ordinance to create an authority for the transfer and posting of Group-A officers in Delhi, which the AAP government has said goes against the Supreme Court verdict.
The bill has been a point of contention between the AAP-led Delhi government and the central government. It was passed in the Lok Sabha on August 3 and was approved 131-102 during voting in the Rajya Sabha on August 7.