‘Chief secy trying to disrupt Assembly’
NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators Saurabh Bharadwaj, Rakhi Birla, Sanjeev Jha, Madan Lal and Vishesh Ravi, who are chairpersons of different committees of the Delhi Assembly, on Friday accused chief secretary Anshu Prakash of interfering in the functioning of the legislative assembly.
The MLAS accused the top bureaucrat of threatening officers posted at the secretariat of the legislative assembly.
Repeated calls and texts to Anshu Prakash on his mobile phone by Hindustan Times for response on the allegations went unanswered.
In a joint statement, Aam Aadmi Party legislators accused the senior bureaucrat of threatening Vidhan Sabha officers by asking them not to hold the Question Hour during the three-day Assembly session scheduled to take place on June 6, 7 and 8.
The AAP MLAS, however, did not present any evidence or give any details of the officers who were threatened or explained how they were allegedly threatened.
Saurabh Bharadwaj, legislator and chief spokesperson of the party said, “The chief secretary is pressurizing the law department of Delhi government to seek a legal opinion to find a way to bypass the question hour session,”
The group of AAP legislators said they will write to speaker Ram Niwas Goel requesting him to check any such attempts to dis- tort the functioning of the assembly and nip it in the bud. “We will request the House to take a collective decision against the chief secretary,” they said.
Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta called the allegation absurd and said that the chief secretary can have no role in the Question Hour as all questions are directly sent to the departments which is approved by the ministers. “The last date of filing the questions by MLAS in the Assembly was today. When the process has not yet begun, how can such an allegation be put?” Gupta said.
Constitutional expert Subhash Kashyap said it is solely the speaker’s discretion whether to hold the question hour or not. “This allegation comes at the backdrop the Speaker being accused by bureaucrats of misusing his powers for getting works done as an MLA at his Shahdara constituency. So, it’s to be seen who is right who is wrong,” he said.
Hindustan Times on Thursday had reported about how speaker Ram Niwas Goel referred a matter involving DSIIDC MD Mohanjeet Singh to the privilege committee for not being present in a meeting the speaker called for.
The upcoming session of the Delhi Assembly is likely to be a stormy one with the legislators set to discuss the issue of full statehood for Delhi, a key poll promise of the party during the 2015 assembly elections. After coming to power, the Arvind Kejriwal led government drafted the ‘State of Delhi Bill, 2016’ for granting the Capital its autonomy.