Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday won the confidence motion that was tabled by him in the AAP-dominated Delhi Assembly, with 54 AAP MLAs who were present in the House voting in support of it.
Tabling the motion on Friday, Kejriwal termed it a “parliamentary manoeuvre”even as he alleged that seven MLAs from his party were offered Rs 25 crore each to switch to the BJP. The rationale behind the motion, he argued, was “to demonstrate that once again, the BJP’s ‘Operation Lotus’ has faltered in Delhi”.
“None of our MLAs defected, and all remain steadfastly aligned with us,” the AAP supremo said.
House proceedings and implications
In the 70-member Delhi Assembly, the AAP has 62 MLAs.
The 54 AAP MLAs present in the House on Saturday voted for Kejriwal’s trust vote. Seven BJP MLAs in the House were suspended on Friday for allegedly creating ruckus. The only BJP MLA in the House during the discussion on the trust vote was Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, the Leader of Opposition, with his voice being the only dissenting one.
The discussion on the confidence motion saw Kejriwal hit out at the BJP for allegedly seeking to “paralyse the city’s administration by arm-twisting bureaucrats into submission”, seeking to “buy AAP MLAs for Rs 25 crore each” and arrest him to topple the AAP government.
Kejriwal, whose party is part of the Opposition INDIA bloc and is engaged in seat-sharing talks with the Congress, also signalled the agenda for the AAP’s campaign against the BJP, which rules the Centre, in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
At present, the AAP does not have a single MP from Delhi.
During his address, the CM accused the BJP of “peddling a rumour” that the Delhi Assembly “would be done away with” if the BJP came back to power once again. He asked his party MLAs “to go to citizens” regarding this alleged conspiracy and tell them that “the BJP was seeking to render the power of their franchise useless by dissolving the Delhi Assembly”.
What happens now?
The motion was not only a show of legislative strength within the House, but also to send out a political signal amidst the possibility of Kejriwal’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the liquor policy case. Kejriwal has so far skipped five summons issued by the ED. His main ground for skipping the ED ‘s summonses has been his question whether he was being summoned as an accused or a witness.The ED has also filed in a Delhi court a case against Kejriwal over his non-compliance with the summons for which the CM appeared before the court on Saturday via video conferencing, expressing regret that he could not appear in person because of the ongoing Assembly session. The court has adjourned the matter to March 16.
The ED has issued its sixth summons to Kejriwal earlier this week, asking him to appear on February 19. All eyes will now be on whether he appears before the ED next week.
Past confidence motions
This is the third trust vote proceedings that unfolded in the Delhi Assembly during the current tenure of the Kejriwal
government that started its third term in February 2020.
On all three occasions, the trigger, as per Kejriwal, has been an alleged attempt by the BJP to wean away the AAP legislators under “Operation Lotus”. The first such show of strength took place in August 2022 when Kejriwal proposed and won a confidence vote in the floor of the House after accusing the BJP of allegedly offering Rs 20 crore each to the AAP MLAs to break ranks and join the BJP.
The next one was in March 2023, days after the arrest of former deputy CM Manish Sisodia in the liquor policy case by the CBI. Kejriwal had then accused the BJP of getting central agencies such as the CBI and the ED “to call and threaten AAP MLAs” with arrest if they did not break away and join the BJP.
BJP’s response
On each such occasion, the BJP has contended that the vote of confidence in a House already dominated by the AAP “is an exercise in futility, a waste of the legislature’s time and a ploy by the AAP chief to divert attention from allegations of corruption”.
Bidhuri has alleged that the Delhi CM’s latest motion of confidence was a bid to avoid appearing at a city court in relation to the ED case. The BJP has also filed a formal complaint with the Delhi Police regarding the AAP’s poaching charges and has argued that Kejriwal was not cooperating with police investigation regarding his own allegations.
