As Opposition MPs staged a walkout from a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha in protest against the inclusion of a Bill to replace the Delhi Ordinance, the Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi on Thursday, in a surprise move, joined in.
After Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh objected to the consideration of the Bill, saying that the matter was sub-judice, Opposition members, including the Congress’s Jairam Ramesh and the Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien, supported it, and argued that the Bill shouldn’t be included in the List of Business.
In an unexpected move, BRS’ K Keshava Rao too backed the Opposition members, and later, Ramesh, O’Brien, Singh, Rao, the DMK’s Tiruchi Siva and the RJD’s Manoj Kumar Jha walked out of the BAC meeting.
Rao said that the Bill is against the federal spirit of the Constitution.
Later, Singh told reporters that ‘The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill’ was the first Bill in the list of business, and that it aimed to snatch the powers of the elected state government.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar had allocated two hours for the discussion of the Delhi Bill, which was to replace the Ordinance.
“We opposed it. All the parties said that such an anti-Constitutional Bill should not be tabled in Parliament. The government did not listen to us. The Chairman did not listen to us. When the government and the Chairman did not listen to us… we boycotted the meeting,” he said.
Interestingly, ever since the Delhi liquor ‘scam’, in which the Enforcement Directorate has alleged that AAP leaders received kickbacks to the tune of Rs 100 crore from a group of individuals identified as the “South Group”, which also includes the daughter of KCR and Telangana MLC, K Kavitha, the AAP and the BRS have shared close ties.
While KCR visited Delhi government schools in May last year, AAP leaders, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann had attended the BRS’ mega Khammam rally.