Tussle between Centre and AAP reaches flash-point; Kejriwal says democracy is over

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 21

The tussle between Centre and AAP reached a flash-point on Wednesday with Delhi Chief Minister and party national Convener Arvind Kejriwal hitting out at BJP and Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit for his veto against a special assembly session in Punjab, saying there is end to democracy.

Purohit rolled back his order for the special assembly session, which was slated on September 22, for the Bhagwant Singh Mann-led AAP government in Punjab to move a confidence motion.

Flaying the Governor’s decision, Kejriwal said “democracy is over” in the country, and attributed it to cue from the BJP as part of its devious “Operation Lotus”.

“How can the governor refuse a session called by the cabinet? The democracy is over. Two days ago the governor allowed the session. When Operation Lotus started failing and the numbers were not complete, a call came from above asking him to withdraw the permission,” Kejriwal said.

Giving a larger political context to the development, Kejriwal said there is contest between Constitution on the one side, and Operation Lotus on the other.

According to political observers, by making it a conflict between Constitution and BJP’s alleged power-grab calisthenics, Kejriwal wants to lay a foundation for mobilisation of non-BJP parties and AAP to be its nucleus in future.

The tussle between AAP and the BJP, which started after Central appears to have hit the lowest ebb. Any further progression would naturally have deep and dark political overtones.