
NEW DELHI: BJP today hit out at Delhi Chief Minister
Arvind Kejriwal for questioning the credibility of the President's office over
refusal of assent to a bill on appointment of parliamentary secretaries, and
accused him of being "obsessed" about attacking Prime Minister
Narendra Modi for no rhyme or reason.
BJP
spokesperson Sambit Patra said Mr Kejriwal was "frustrated" that his
flying ambition has crash-landed and asked him not to make the President's
decision a "political issue".
"Office
of the President of India and the Election Commission are independent
institutions with great credibility. You ( Arvind Kejriwal) have certain
political ambitions, rightly so under a democratic system, but for god's sake
don't demean the credibility of the President of India because in the end you
are demeaning the democracy of this country," Mr Patra said.
Mr
Kejriwal, earlier today, accused PM Modi of indulging in "political
vendetta" over the refusal of assent by the President to the bill that
protects 21 party legislators who have been appointed parliamentary secretaries
and face the prospect of disqualification, and said BJP is "scared"
of Aam Aadmi Party and unable to digest its defeat in Delhi.
Asked
about the Prime Minister's role in the process as the bill has been turned down
by the President and not him, Mr Kejriwal said, "President does not take
any decision. Probably the file doesn't even go to him. The decision is taken
by the government and the Home Ministry decided this."
Mr Patra
said the issue of disqualification of 21 legislators lies before the President
and the Election Commission.
"This
issue is not with BJP. We don't have to do anything to it," he said,
adding that the complainant in the case was an independent lawyer.
He said
that as per the existing law formulated in 2006, Delhi is entitled to have one
parliamentary secretary and Mr Kejriwal should have ensured its amendment
before appointing 21 legislators as parliamentary secretaries.
"But
he was trying to amend it in retrospective and this has been caught
red-handed," Mr Patra said.
He
alleged that Mr Kejriwal, instead of working for development of Delhi, was only
attacking the Prime Minister and was obsessed about it.
The BJP
spokesperson claimed AAP legislators are the "highest paid"
legislators in the country and they had even got a 400 per cent salary rise.
"When
they took their oath, they came in metro, e-rickshaw and other simple modes of
transport as they are going to do service. Now they say if a legislator has to
visit an hospital or a school, he should get additional renumeration, a red
beacon car among others. Is this service or commercialisation of service?"
Mr Patra said.
Sambit
Patra said BJP is not afraid of AAP and the people are watching how the Delhi
government is performing.
Petitions
have been filed with President Pranab Mukherjee seeking disqualification of the
21 AAP legislators on the ground that they occupied 'office of profit'
violating constitutional provisions.
Acting as
a quasi-judicial body, the Election Commission, to which the President referred
the issue, had sought replies from the legislators.
Through
the bill for amending the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of
Disqualification) Act, 1997, the AAP government wanted
"retrospective" exemption for the parliamentary secretaries from
disqualification.
In March,
2015, Mr Kejriwal had passed an order appointing the 21 party legislators as
parliamentary secretaries.