NEW DELHI: The tussle between the ruling BJP and the AAP intensified as the Opposition MLAs, who were suspended for three days, were prevented from entering Delhi Assembly premises on Thursday, leading to a dharna led by Leader of the Opposition Atishi outside the complex. The clash is expected to continue on Friday, as the Delhi government is set to table the CAG report on health in the House. In another development in the day, six-time BJP MLA Mohan Singh Bisht was elected as the deputy speaker of the Assembly.After being barred from entering the Assembly premises, the AAP legislators staged a dharna outside the complex. Raising slogans like “BJP sun le, Jai Bhim, Jai Bhim” and “BJP ki tanashahi nahi chalegi” with “dafli” beats in the background, the AAP MLAs held placards with photos of B.R. Ambedkar and protested.Calling it unprecedented, Ms Atishi, in a post on X, wrote, “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 Legislative Assembly.”The Leader of the Opposition also wrote to President Droupadi Murmu seeking an appointment over the issue. In her letter, Ms Atishi accused the BJP of “crossing all limits of dictatorship” after coming to power in Delhi.”The BJP government in Delhi has removed the pictures of Constitution maker Baba Saheb Ambedkar Ji and Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh Ji from various offices of the Delhi government. This is not only an insult… When the AAP opposed this move and tried to raise the issue in the Assembly Speaker Vijendra Gupta undemocratically expelled 21 party MLAs from the meetings of the House for three days on February 25,” Ms Atishi alleged in her letter to the President and sought an appointment on February 28.Stating that disrupting L-G’s address is a gross violation, Mr Gupta said that it is a normal procedure. When a member is expelled from the House they will have to leave the Assembly premises. When expulsion is over, they can participate in all the proceedings.”During the day’s proceedings in the House, Mr Bisht was elected as the deputy Speaker after the motion moved by chief minister Rekha Gupta and was seconded by environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa. Gajender Singh Yadav backed the second motion proposed by Anil Kumar Sharma. Mr Bisht won the recent Assembly polls from Mustafabad, defeating AAP’s Adeel Ahmad Khan by over 17,000 votes.With the Delhi government zeroing in on unravelling the alleged discrepancies found in the various departments under the AAP government, the CAG report on health will be tabled on Friday, a day after tabling the Central auditor’s report on the now scrapped excise policy on Wednesday. The CAG report on health has flagged the shortage of staff and essential drugs, besides other shortcomings.On the CAG report on the AAP-led government’s liquor policy, Mr Gupta said it has been referred to the Public Accounts Committee for examination, with the committee expected to submit its report within three months.”Members, as is evident, the CAG’s ‘performance audit report on regulation and supply of liquor in Delhi’ has brought out grave irregularities in the implementation of the excise policy in Delhi by the Aam Aadmi government. The report has brought out in detail how the public exchequer incurred a huge loss so that private firms could profit illegally at the expense of the government,” the Speaker said.During the discussion on the CAG report, Delhi minister Kapil Mishra said, “AAP-da government tried every possible way to stop the CAG report from being presented in the Assembly, if I have to summarise the report in one line, then I will say ‘Jhadu wala hi daru wala hai’… Delhi has shown that only the public is “malik” in democracy, as those people are ineligible to even enter the House today, he added.The lone AAP MLA, Amantullah Khan, who attended the House objected to the words used to attack the previous AAP government during the proceedings and said “character assassination” of his party was done in the debate over the excise policy.As per the CAG report, the exchequer incurred a total loss of `2,002.68 crores due to the excise policy. Due to a number of issues, including the opening of liquor vends in non-conforming municipal wards (`941.53 crores), failure to re-tender, surrendered licenses (`890 crores), Covid-linked waiver to retail licensees (`144 crores) and failure to properly collect security deposit (`27 crores).
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