Is Arvind Kejriwal eyeing Punjab CM’s post to satisfy his lust for unbridled powers?

During the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Arvind Kejriwal’s theme song for his party’s campaign was along its demand of grant of full statehood to Delhi. He ended up with egg on his face, with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) finishing third on all the seven seats of the national Capital.

He was back to the freebie spree for the 2020 assembly polls, and won hands down.

But Kejriwal continues to have aspirations for a national presence, though his party has seldom done anything of substance in the Delhi assembly and Lok Sabha polls outside Delhi, except for Punjab in 2017, when it emerged as the main opposition party, leaving the Akali Dal far behind, in the state assembly polls.

Now, Kejriwal is once again back campaigning in the states of Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab. In Uttarakhand and Goa, he has made it clear that the Chief Minister would have a local face and that neither he nor anybody from the central leadership was in race for it.

However, in Punjab the leadership is dithering, not because there is a problem of plenty, but somewhere, Kejriwal seems intent on holding the reins just in case the AAP does well in the elections there.

Such discussion had cropped up during the last assembly polls also and this time too, it is back in political discourse.

Kejriwal makes no bones about his frustration of ruling a ‘half-baked’ state like Delhi, where a lot of power, especially that related to law and order and land, are vested with the Lieutenant Governor. He had knocked on the doors of the judiciary regarding this ‘misbalance’ in distribution of power.

The special status for Delhi emanates from it being the national Capital.

The first demand for freeing the administration of the city from the apron strings of the Centre was made way back in the 1950s by Delhi’s first chief minister Chaudhary Brahm Prakash. Delhi then was a category C state with a legislative assembly.

Delhi was converted into a Union Territory in 1956 following the reorganisation of states.

Though the present governance model may have shorn the state government of some powers, it gives Delhi a cash-rich state government. Elected city governments in Delhi may complain about not being allowed a free run, as in the case of other states, but it should not be forgotten that the pampered and prime status of Delhi is all thanks to the Centre’s intervention.

Delhi’s annual state budget today is almost Rs 70,000 crore. The sum is much bigger than the budget of several full-fledged state governments. In addition, the budget does not include the expenditure on Delhi Police, which is part of the Union Budget. Even the responsibility for pension liabilities of former Delhi government employees lies with the Centre.

Moreover, Delhi government’s budget only includes part funding of the three municipal corporations, with the remaining amount coming through their own revenue models and funding from the Centre. Delhi Governmentcontributes no funds to the New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which raise their own revenues and the shortfall is again met by the Central government.

Given the situation, if Centre was to give full statehood to the national capital, along with control over the NDMC area, Delhi’s budget outlay would jump to at least Rs 100,000 crore. Where will the additional sum come from?

The Aam Aadmi Party-led government knows that it was huge injection of capital from the Centre which allowed it to deliver whatever itclaims as its achievements in the advertorials issued in the newspapers.

As experts have pointed out, if Delhi Government lives within its means, it has unlimited fiscal autonomy, like any other state. However, this state of affairs is dependent on its positive cash balance. Once the city government spends beyond its means, it loses that autonomy and becomes a subordinate office of the Home Ministry, like other UTs.

This was something which an astute administrator like Sheila Dikshit understood well during her 15-year-reign as Chief Minister. This period saw an unprecedented phase of development in the city. Dikshit knew that if special status was withdrawn, Delhi Government would become penurious.

However, the agenda of Aam Aadmi Party is not governance but the desire to wield power. As such, it sees the current situation as a restriction.

It’s the search for unbridled power that is making Kejriwal eye the Chief Minister’s office of Punjab. Whether he attains that or not is another matter. Meanwhile, Delhi would continue to suffer on the governance front.

(The writer is author of the book ‘Delhi Political 1947-2013’. Views are personal)