India
Atishi promises AAP will not field candidate against BJP’s Vijender Gupta in Delhi elections – but on one condition | India News – Times of India
Atishi went a step further and offered to personally campaign for Gupta if he successfully cleared the bureaucratic hurdles and received approval from the LG.
The comments came during a heated debate during the last session of the Delhi Assembly where the ruling AAP and opposition BJP lawmakers blamed each other over the removal of bus commissioners.
Defending her party’s position, Atishi said the proposal to reinstate the marshals was pending approval by the LG. She also responded to the BJP’s allegations, which blamed former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for the removal of the marshals from November 2023.
Atishi clarified that Kejriwal had in fact opposed the removal, citing an October 2023 letter in which the CM directed that the marshals should remain in service and called for disciplinary action against civil servants who had their salaries withheld.
She accused the LG of removing the marshals without regard to public safety, a decision she said was politically motivated and detrimental to the well-being of the marshals and their families.
BJP leaders in the meeting rejected the AAP’s narrative and insisted that the removal of the marshals was carried out under the leadership of Kejriwal, and now the AAP was only playing politics with the issue of their reinstatement.
Seeking answers from Atishi, Gupta said the AAP government had deployed bus marshals and then removed them.
BJP MLA Abhay Verma questioned the ruling party’s ability to resolve the issue and wondered why the AAP government, which had been in power for almost a decade, had failed to bring back the marshals.
Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj, however, emphasized that regularization of bus commissioners falls under the jurisdiction of the LG as it concerns ‘services’ and ‘law and order’ matters, areas where the Delhi government has limited jurisdiction.