Kailash Gahlot presents Delhi Budget after row over Centre withholding approval

The Delhi Budget was presented on Wednesday by Finance Minister Kailash Gahlot at 11 AM at the Delhi Legislative Assembly, a day after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs granted its approval to it Budget following a clarification from the AAP government.

The Budget was scheduled to be tabled on Tuesday but on Monday night, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that it was “stalled” by the Centre. Following the development, allegations and counter-allegations flew between the state government, the L-G House and the MHA.

Kejriwal said that the Budget had been approved “without any change” and also questioned the practice of sending it to the Centre for clearance.

The Delhi Chief Minister alleged that the Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary (Finance) sat on the observations made by the Centre for three days, under pressure from the MHA.

“Action should be taken against these officers. The file, despite making repeated calls, was put up to the minister at 6 pm. We had the option to fight, to go to court. But I said no, we don’t have to fight. We responded to the observations. We did not make any changes, it is the same… They wanted us to bow down and touch their feet, we did,” he said.

Kejriwal further said, “According to the Constitution, the L-G is bound by the aid and advice of the council of ministers. The Supreme Court says this in its 2018 order… He does not have the right to make any observations or write anything on the file. If he does, it is an insult to this temple of democracy… If something has to be said, the House will say it… Everyone here, including BJP leaders, has been elected by the people. Why are they here if Delhi has to be run by the L-G? If the Centre has been sent the budget, it has no right to raise any objection…”

He also said that the entire issue of the Budget not being tabled was that of “satisfying the Centre’s ego”.

“What was achieved by this other than satisfying their ego? Yesterday it was being said on TV channels that the Centre has said the infrastructure budget was lower than the advertising budget and we (Centre) have asked them to fix this (allocation). In the budget, the allocation for infrastructure projects is Rs 20,000 crore and the allocation for advertising is Rs 500 crore. We never knew 500 is bigger than 20,000. Inhone oopar se le ke neeche tak anpadhon ki jamaat bitha ke rakhhi hui hai (They have illiterates in their ranks, top to bottom),” he said.