GHAZIABAD, Dec 24: Arvind Kejriwal today finalised his team of Ministers that includes his trusted associate Manish Sisodia and five others but was embarrassed with open dissent from a newly-elected MLA over his being kept out of the Government.
The task of giving shape to the Government was undertaken on a day deep divisions came to the fore in Congress over extending support to AAP in Government formation. However, late in the night Congress sources set at rest reports that moves were on to immediately withdraw the support.
Kejriwal, who is likely to be sworn-in as Chief Minister on Thursday, sent to Lt Governor Najeeb Jung a list of six Ministers, including the names of Sisodia, a former journalist who won from Patparganj constituency, Rakhi Birla, the giant killer who defeated PWD Minister Rajkumar Chouhan, Somnath Bharti (defeated Women and Child Development Minister Kiran Walia) Saurabh Bhardwaj, Girish Soni and Satendra Jain.
Disclosing this, Sisodia denied there was any dissent. He said picking up his team was the Chief Minister’s prerogative.
However, party sources said Vinod Kumar Binny, a two time Corporator in the Delhi Municipal Corporation with Congress background, is sulking over his non-inclusion in the Cabinet.
An upset Binny walked out of a meeting with Kejriwal at his residence and told the media that he would address a press conference tomorrow that could embarrass the party.
The sources said efforts were on to pacify him in which leaders including Yogendra Yadav are said to be involved. Speculation is that he could be made the Speaker whose role will be important in a fractious House.
Meanwhile, Kejriwal is understood to have decided to pick up senior IAS officer, Rajendra Kumar as Chief Minister’s Principal Secretary.
Like Kejriwal, 47-year-old Kumar, at present Higher Education Secretary, is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur.
Kumar met Kejriwal at his residence here. Chief Secretary D M Spolia also met Kejriwal. They were described as courtesy calls. Birla, Bharti, Jain and Soni met Kejriwal.
Divisions in Congress today came out in open over its support to Aam Aadmi Party to form Government in Delhi but there were indications that the party will not rush into withdrawing support immediately.
Reflecting the unease within the Congress over the move to support Arvind Kejriwal’s party, general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said, “There is also an opinion that perhaps the decision to support AAP in this manner was not correct. Some people feel this.”
He added “We have given our support to AAP. We expect that AAP delivers good results, works on its manifesto and do good for people.”
However, a senior party functionary ruled out any immediate move to withdraw the letter of support given to the Lieutenant Governor.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel said in Ahmedabad, “in an organisation, there are different voices but right now our support is for Aam Admi Party…We will see what happens later.”
The remarks of the senior party leaders came a day after scores of Congress supporters held a demonstration outside the DPCC office against the party’s decision to extend outside support to AAP to form the Government in Delhi.
Ever since AAP decided to form a Government in Delhi with Congress support, the leaders of Congress have been repeatedly emphasising that their support to AAP is not unconditional.
Sections in the party view that supporting AAP, which is hitting out at Congress day in and day out and threatening to book its leaders and order probes against them, makes the party look poor in people’s eyes.
Moreover there is a view that Congress was caught napping as the leaders, who favoured supporting AAP to form government, were of the belief that Kejriwal will avoid staking claim to power.
A senior party leader said that even if Congress had to support AAP, it should have done like the Left did for UPA-I, forcing its say in programmes and policies of the Government.
“Their argument is that Delhi voters have not given their support to Congress to the extent that even the Leader of Opposition will not be from Congress party. We were placed at the third position. Perhaps, it would have been appropriate for Congress to say that it is not our responsibility to form or not form a Government.
“Voters did not expect this from us. Whoever has to form a Government should do it with support from whomsoever they want to. We will keep playing the role of an opposition in the limited circumstances and will keep raising our voice against people’s problems, for development works and wherever there is any injustice. We will keep playing our role as a responsible party,” Dwivedi said.
The Congress General Secretary, however at the same time said, “Since now a proposal (to support AAP) has already been made, we have to carry on with that as well. Perhaps we will have to find out a middle path.”
Claiming that the Congress Government in Delhi in the last 15 years changed the face of the city, Dwivedi said, “Despite this voters did not accept us, then it’s time for us to introspect within ourselves that why did this happened after all.”
He added, “we will examine our work style, our vision and plug the loopholes, whichever were left and strengthen our party organisation and regain the confidence of the people. It is not our duty to see who forms Government or not. This is indeed a thinking within the party.”
In this condition, Dwivedi said, that Congress could have better played the role of opposition and continued to raise the issues of people like a responsible opposition.
He parried a question whether Congress could withdraw support to AAP later, saying Congress does not follow an extremist approach “and those organisations and parties which follow an extremist approach do not meet a good end”.
As conflicting voices emerged in the Congress over the issue, BJP hit out at both AAP and Congress alleging that they were collaborating to form government in a “self- serving” exercise with “dishonourable” motive.
It said this was happening as Congress wants a breather and fears another electoral humiliation while AAP was keen to prevent its MLAs from getting “scattered”.
Meanwhile, AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal today said his Government will take action against any “corrupt” minister of the previous Congress regime.
In a two-minute video, he justified taking support from Congress and how despite that it was determined to follow its own agenda and fulfil the promises made to the people of Delhi.
The video begins with Kejriwal saying (after poll results were out) they had got two kinds of views, one asking them to “keep away from both Congress and BJP” while the other said “form the Government and prove that we can deliver” when Congress was extending support and prove that it can run a Government fulfilling its promises.
AAP clarified that no ministry would be given to any Congress candidate in the Government and they “will take action against any previous corrupt minister of Congress and BJP”.
Kejriwal says people were passionate about their views. So the party had again to go to people to get a referendum on the issue.
The video shows that in the public meetings, people in “overwhelming” majority said “Yes” to AAP forming the Government. It also claimed that opinion of over 26 lakh people were taken before the party decided to stake its claim.
“Yes, we are forming the minority Government with outside support” says the message and then explains what is a minority Government.
It says “no ministry will be given to Congress, which will not be part of the Government”.
AAP reaffirmed its stand and said it would implement all 18 promises it had made to people of Delhi and which were also highlighted in the letters to Congress President Sonia Gandhi and BJP Chief Rajnath Singh by Kejriwal while seeking their stand.
Kejriwal’s party hit out BJP for attacking AAP over the issue of forming Government with Congress support.
“What is BJP’s strategy? If we don’t form the Government, they said we are running away. If we form the Government, they say we are the B-team of Congress,” the message in the video says.
Reiterating that they were not bothered about Congress or BJP, AAP said they only think of the common man and their focus was on solving people’s problems. (PTI)
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