New Delhi, Sep 22 (IANS) Aam Aadmi Party leader Atishi took oath as the Chief Minister of Delhi on Saturday. Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinay Kumar Saxena administered the oath of office and secrecy to her. Along with her, AAP MLAs Gopal Rai, Kailash Gehlot, Imran Hussain, Saurabh Bhardwaj and Mukesh Ahlawat took oath as ministers.
Despite the Aam Aadmi Party having 62 MLAs in Delhi, only five leaders have been made ministers. In such a situation, it becomes important to know that when AAP has more than 60 MLAs in Delhi, why only five leaders have been made ministers.
In fact, in the year 2003, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government had made a provision in the Constitution regarding the size of the cabinet of the government. Before this, no such provision was applicable during the governments in the country and the state. However, the size of the Council of Ministers was limited by the 91st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003.
The then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government made the 91st amendment to the Constitution in 2003. Through this amendment, the size of the cabinet was limited to 15 percent. On this basis, the number of members in the central and state cabinets has to be decided.
Earlier, there was no provision for the size of the cabinet. Before its implementation, there were governments in different states of the country where the number of ministers was 15 to 35 percent. Before the 91st amendment came into force, in the year 2003, there were more than 90 ministers in the UP government. Bihar had more than 80 ministers, Maharashtra had more than 65, West Bengal had more than 40 and Andhra Pradesh also had the same number of ministers.
Let us tell you that the 91st amendment of the Constitution came into force in March 2003. This is the reason why only five cabinet ministers have been included in the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government apart from Chief Minister Atishi. Earlier, in the government led by Arvind Kejriwal, only five leaders apart from him were given a place in the cabinet.
–IANS
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