Days after being suspended for three days for causing a disturbance in the House, AAP MLAs were barred from entering the Delhi Assembly on Thursday. The MLAs asserted that in order to keep them from entering the Assembly premises, barricades were erected at the entrance.
The Delhi Assembly’s Leader of the Opposition, Atishi, denounced the action on X, claiming that the BJP had elevated “dictatorship” to unprecedented levels. “AAP MLAs were suspended from the House for three days for raising slogans of ‘Jai Bhim’. And today, they are not even being allowed to enter the Vidhan Sabha premises. This has never happened in the history of the Delhi Assembly,” she wrote.
Delhi Minister Parvesh Verma, meanwhile, justified the suspension, claiming that the MLAs had interfered with House business. “They (AAP MLAs) cannot raise slogans when the LG is addressing the House. If they break the laws like this, it is not good,” he said.
Following the controversy over the CAG report on the liquor policy, which resulted in the arrest of numerous high-ranking officials, including party chairman Arvind Kejriwal and former Deputy chairman Minister Manish Sisodia, 21MLAs, including former Delhi Chief Minister Atishi, were suspended from the state Assembly.
The now-scrapped liquor policy, which was put in place by the previous Aam Aadmi Party-led government in Delhi, caused a total revenue loss of Rs 2,002 crore, according to the CAG report. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta presented the report to the Delhi Assembly today, but the AAP MLAs strongly objected and were suspended as a result.
The CAG study, which covered the years 2017–18 through 2020–21, identified significant financial irregularities. It concluded that the Delhi government lost over Rs 890 crore in revenue as a result of its inability to re-tender liquor licenses that had been relinquished. Additionally, because zonal licensees were given exemptions, delays in action resulted in losses of Rs 941 crore.
A Rs 144 crore waiver given to liquor licensees for the period between December 28, 2021, and January 27, 2022, citing COVID-19 constraints, was one of the most controversial disclosures. The political discussion surrounding the liquor policy and its effects on the state’s finances has heated up in response to the report’s conclusions.
However, AAP MLAs asserted that they were demonstrating against the removal of BR Ambedkar’s picture from the Delhi Secretariat and the Chief Minister’s office. They asked whether the ruling party thought Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a better leader than Ambedkar.
