Delhi LG Invites Kejriwal For Meeting To Discuss Provisions Governing City Administration

Amid the continuing power tussle between them, Lt Governor V K Saxena on Monday invited Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for a meeting to discuss the provisions governing administration in Delhi. In a letter to Kejriwal, Saxena asked the chief minister to hold regular meetings with him for "conflict-free" governance of the national capital in the interest of its residents. The LG's office and the AAP government in Delhi have often found themselves at loggerheads over various issues, including the now-scrapped excise policy.

Kejriwal, in his recent letters to Saxena, questioned the nomination of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (MCD) presiding officer and aldermen as well as members of the Haj committee, saying if LG as "administrator" meant ignoring the elected government in Delhi. In his letter, Saxena said the provisions governing administration in Delhi "... are amply clear for any practitioner of statecraft, lawyer and scholar as indeed a common citizen. I would like to invite you for a meeting where we could discuss issues threadbare".

He said the provisions governing administration in Delhi emanate out of serious deliberations in Constituent Assembly, State Reorganisation Commission and Parliament. They have also been clearly interpreted by the Supreme Court on several occasions, he added. Citing various letters sent by the chief minister to him over the past few days, Saxena appreciated Kejriwal for "having started taking governance in the city seriously".

The LG said the chief minister used to meet him regularly till October 2022 but later he expressed his inability to do so due to his preoccupation with assembly and municipal polls. Since the polls are over, the meetings should be resumed for "deliberative and conflict-free" governance of the city in the interest of the people, Saxena said. The Chief Minister's Office may fix any mutually convenient date for a meeting, he said.