Centre wanted to satisfy its ego: Kejriwal as Delhi Budget gets approval after delay
New Delhi, March 21: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday slammed Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena and said that the raising of observations on the Budget was against the Constitution. “LG has no right to raise any objection to the Budget,” he added.
The Delhi Chief Minister further said that the Centre only wanted to "satisfy its ego" by stalling the Budget.
"According to the law, the Central government has no right to interfere in the Delhi budget. Whatever it did was unconstitutional. But we don't want to fight with the government. We satisfied their ego, they sent four points. We gave the answers to all four and they passed the Budget. You could have passed it yesterday," Kejriwal said.
"It was only for ego satisfaction that they have compelled us to bow down. The LG has no power to raise any objection or make any observation on the Budget, it is beyond his power. So whatever observation was raised was against the Constitution," he further said.
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The Chief Minister accused the Centre of spreading false information about the government spending more on advertising than on infrastructure.
"They planted the news in the media that the Delhi government has spent more on advertisement than infrastructure. The allocation on the budget is the same as last year, Rs 500 crore, it has not been increased. We have an allocation of over Rs 20,000 crore on infrastructure in the Budget. How is Rs 500 crore more than Rs 20,000? They were lying. I am happy that the budget will be presented tomorrow. The crisis has ended," he added.
Kejriwal went on to outline the Centre's objections and the Delhi government's responses.
"One objection was on the capital expenditure. We told them there had been no change in the capital expenditure for the last four years. The other was on the expenditure on advertising, we told them that it is similar to the last year. They pointed out something about subsidies. We told them that take a look at the subsidy of a pattern of the last four years, it is the same," Kejriwal stated.
He further urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "let the Delhi government work".
"I want to request the Prime Minister that we want to work with you and with your cooperation. We do not want conflict. You let us work. We will fully cooperate with the Central government."
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- ANI
