This is no way to govern Delhi
DELHI’S Lieutenant Governor (LG) VK Saxena’s edit-page lament in The Indian Express (August 28) about ‘misgovernance’ by the government he heads and minister Saurabh Bhardwaj’s riposte the next day, claiming that Saxena was not letting an ‘elected government’ function, have exposed the National Capital Territory’s dirty linen in public. This squabble amid Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s dubious incarceration presents India’s capital to the world as an example of how a city must not be governed. This at a time when the rains have inundated a large part of the megalopolis and littered it with stinking muck.
The two articles, highlighting a decade-long slugfest, laid bare a number of chinks in the governance of Delhi. Governance of national capitals across the world has been a puzzle from the perspective of the balance of power. Historical Dilli has been tied up in knots since 1857, more particularly since 1911, when the British decided to shift the capital of the Raj to India’s ‘eternal’ capital city and built Dilli’s eighth city — New Delhi — with unrivalled grandeur. In contrast, countries around the world have found solutions regarding governance of their capital cities in a consensual division of power.
Any resolution of the issues emerging from the immoral power play appears difficult in the near future.
For example, Berlin has an administrative structure that is autonomous of Germany’s federal government. Washington DC, London, Ottawa, Amsterdam, Canberra, Paris and others have also traditionally been looked upon as city governments with urban service functions. In most of them, the Mayor remains the most visible face of the city government. In some cases, the police are also under the city government.
Between mythical Indraprastha of the Mahabharata era and Shahjahanabad of the mid-17th century, India’s capital city has been the site of six more capitals. Lal Kot or Rai Pithora, Siri, Tughlaqabad, Jahanpanah, Feroz Shah Kotla and Din Panah were built by kings and emperors. Of these, only Shahjahanabad survived as a ‘living’ city when the British finally won India in 1857, exiling the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar to Rangoon. They reduced Delhi to a district town of Punjab, till its capital status returned in 1911, and Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker were tasked with building the imperial New Delhi. Dilli so charmed the British that they held imperial durbars here in 1877, 1903 and 1911.
The Central Public Works Department, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and private builders created the post-colonial Delhi since 1960 to accommodate Partition refugees and other migrants. This ninth city began bursting at the seams in just 25 years. The National Capital Region (NCR) then emerged as the 10th city in 1985, expanding the urban boundaries to the neighbouring states.
The puzzle of governing Delhi was sought to be resolved by making it a Chief Commissioner’s province in 1911 and a Part ‘C’ state after Independence till the States Reorganisation Commission classified it as a UT. Despite having an elected municipal corporation, Delhi demanded a representative body, for an administration with an appointed LG did not satisfy the people’s democratic urge. In fact, the replacement of the Delhi Improvement Trust with the DDA in 1957 to create and implement a Master Plan for the city, and the existence of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and the Cantonment Board, had created a confusing polyarchy, a confusion that has not been resolved even now.
An elected deliberative Metropolitan Council, created in 1966, did not address the demand for a representative body. Political parties expediently demanded statehood for Delhi when in the Opposition and preferred status quo when in power. Eventually, the 69th Constitutional Amendment (1991) transferred some of the powers to an elected government led by a Chief Minister; in 1993, Delhi had a dyarchy, though the MCD and the NDMC continued to exist. Critical subjects such as law and order (police) and land were left with the Union Government-appointed LG.
In 1998, the Congress led by Sheila Dikshit wrested Delhi from the BJP. A discomforting relationship with the Centre ensued. In 2002, then Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani sought to clip the wings of the NCT Delhi’s Congress government by reimposing Section 48 of the Transaction of Business Rules. But the leaders met and sorted out the differences.
The ascension of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) under Kejriwal in 2013 and his confrontational politics set off difficulties. Things became tougher after the emphatic win of the Narendra Modi-led BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. As the Delhi Government’s claims regarding transfers and postings of senior civil servants were bolstered by the Supreme Court, the Centre amended the rules through an ordinance (May 2023) and a constitutional amendment (August 2023) to cripple the Kejriwal government. Saxena’s appointment in May 2022 brought an ugly tussle between the BJP-ruled Centre and the AAP government to the fore.
The abysmal deterioration of politics in the national capital was reflected in the Enforcement Directorate and CBI ‘investigations’ into the charges of corruption against ministers and the chief minister. The Supreme Court’s strong comments in the bail order releasing Sanjay Singh and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia after months of incarceration reflect more than partisanship in play. The way the CM’s bail dates are being pushed each time the matter comes up for hearing only confirms politics beyond constitutional morality.
The sufferer in the process is the national capital, nay the whole NCR, and its residents. Any resolution of the issues emerging from the immoral power play appears difficult in the near future.
