The Rajya Sabha cleared the Delhi services Bill with 131 MPs voting in favour of it and 102 opposing it.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who moved the bill, said the Delhi services bill doesn’t violate the Supreme Court judgment, which said the elected government is the boss in Delhi.
The Services bill, which replaces that Ordinance that wrested control of bureaucrats from the Delhi government, had passed the Lok Sabha test by a voice vote on Thursday.
AAP, which would be most affected by the proposed law, has been campaigning against it for weeks, rallying the Opposition.
Speaking against the bill, Aam Aadmi Party’s Raghav Chadha exhorted the BJP to follow their own leaders who wanted full-fledged statehood for Delhi. The BJP is reacting to the fact that they have lost multiple consecutive elections in Delhi, he said.
Congress’s P Chidambaram said the BJP has neither constitutional nor moral authority to pass this bill. “You won an election (in Delhi) 25 years ago, what moral right do you have? The bill is what the government thinks is a model for Delhi. They invented a model for J&K which is in court today,” he added.
Speaking shortly after the bill was passed, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the BJP is doing this “because the work we did in 7-8 years without any power, they couldn’t do the same despite being in power for 30 years in Gujarat… They have government in Manipur, they burnt down Manipur.”
The proposed law will empower the Union Government to control the functioning of the Delhi government by having the final say in the postings, transfers of bureaucrats and employees.
