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Sheila does a U-turn

Sujay Mehdudia

Delhi Cabinet mulls over approaching Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: After having asserted time and again that the Delhi Government had nothing to do with the sealing and demolitions operations in the Capital as the matter was not under its jurisdiction, the Sheila Dikshit Government has done a U-turn now with a bitterly divided Delhi Cabinet debating the merits of filing an intervening petition in the Supreme Court on the issue of sealing.

Interestingly, according to political observers in the Capital, even as the Cabinet was debating the issue of exploring the legal option to dispel the impression that the Chief Minister or the Delhi Government was not interested in getting relief for the lakhs of people who face displacement, the Delhi Government's standing counsel and some officials sought to become a party to the case during the hearing on the Centre's special mention petition in the Supreme Court on Thursday morning.

Emergency meeting

Facing flak for constantly ducking the issue and describing the traders' agitation as a "drama", a worried Chief Minister convened an emergency meeting of her Cabinet on Thursday morning.

It is learnt that Ms. Dikshit came under pressure after Wednesday's incidents indicated that the local traders and the common man had started pointing accusing fingers at the Chief Minister for "provoking" the situation leading to the present mess on the sealing front. According to sources in the Government, Ms. Dikshit informed the Cabinet that the Government was thinking in terms of approaching the issue legally, a position that received support from two of her Ministers. Both of them backed the Chief Minister and said the legal option should be explored.

However, it is learnt that another half of the Council of Ministers opposed the move to explore the court option and felt that this was badly timed and could recoil on the Delhi Government. They felt that going to the court at this point of time could also invite its wrath and put the Government in an embarrassing situation. "If we get relief on our petition, then a message would go out that we had deliberately shied away from getting relief all this while. Then the onus of getting further relief would also fall on the Delhi Government. This would be bad strategy and send out a wrong signal," said a Minister close to the Chief Minister.

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