The Hindu : New Delhi News : Senior Cong. MLAs decline to defend Govt.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 23, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Senior Cong. MLAs decline to defend Govt.

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: The ruckus created by the Bharatiya Janata Party over the issue of power privatisation, the leakage of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report and the demand for Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's resignation was watched silently by almost the entire treasury benches on the first day of the monsoon session of the Delhi Assembly on Thursday with senior party MLAs and leaders refusing to come to the rescue of the Government, leaving the floor to inexperienced young legislators.

The MLAs were also incensed over the Chief Minister's decision not to summon a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party. For the first time in six and half years of Congress rule here a CLP meeting was not convened before the beginning of the Assembly session. Not a single party MLA stood up to defend the Chief Minister when she came under attack from the BJP for "corruption and nepotism".

The Government was informed in the morning by the Assembly Secretariat that the BJP was moving a no-confidence motion and a strategy could be drawn up accordingly.

However, the Chief Minister's camp was not able to finalise the names of the people who would speak in favour of the Delhi Government inside the Assembly and in the absence of a CLP the MLAs did not know how to go about the whole issue. It was only after the House proceedings began that the Chief Minister, Chip Whip Ramakant Goswami, and Parliamentary Secretary Nasib Singh went about enquiring from the Congress MLAs if they would like to speak against the motion. All the senior party leaders declined to speak in favour of the Delhi Government or defend the issue of privatisation of power inside the House, as it would be politically suicidal for them in their constituencies. Many of them resented that no proper consultations were held to chalk out a strategy and they were not interested in defending the Government or the Chief Minister inside the House. While one of the senior party MLA refused to initiate the debate stating he could not defend the Government on the power issue, another MLA cited bad throat as the reason.

The Government and its strategists were left with no other alternative but to field inexperienced young first time MLAs to defend the Government.

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