Manoj Kumar Mishra
On the recommendation of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, the President appointed Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KYIC) Chairman Vinay Kumar Saxena as the 21st Lieutenant Governor of Delhi on May 23. He assumed office on May 26, 2022. He is the first non-bureaucrat Lieutenant Governor of Delhi. Earlier, the present central government had successfully experimented with appointing non-bureaucrats in several union territories including Jammu and Kashmir.
The Lt Governor is the real ruler in Delhi, it has been proved time and again by the Central Government through various orders. The powers of the Lieutenant Governor were increased by amending the Constitution last year after the Supreme Court’s decision that the role of the Lieutenant Governor on non-reserved subjects be only that of advice. Recently, three municipal corporations were united by amendment of the constitution and full control over the corporations was given to the central government. By-elections to Rajendra Nagar assembly are to be held on June 15. Then after the new delimitation, Delhi Municipal Corporation elections will be held. Despite there being no direct role of the Lieutenant Governor’s house-office (Raj Niwas), the effect of this change can be seen somewhere.
Apart from the Chairman of KVIC, Saxena has been a member of many important committees of the Central Government. Normally the term of the Lieutenant Governor is five years but in reality it depends on the central government how long it does not make changes. After independence, for 20 years in Delhi, the Chief Commissioner was the ruler of Delhi. Aditya Nath Jha, who was the Chief Commissioner in 1966, became the first Lieutenant Governor. Since then, the Lieutenant Governor has been appointed 21 times. Among them Jagmohan and Tejendra Khanna were made lieutenant governors twice.
So far, among the Lieutenant Governors, there have been four ICS, 12 IAS, two IPS, one ISF and two former defense officers. The government of any party at the center has made the post of Lieutenant Governor powerful. On July 4, 2018, the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has ruled that the Delhi government is completely free to take decisions in non-reserved subjects in Delhi, but by saying that Delhi will remain a union territory, it cannot become a state. , set his limit. After this the Delhi government started bypassing the Lieutenant Governor.
The BJP, which ran the movement of full statehood for Delhi, had a government at the Center from 1998 to 2004. During that and again during the BJP government from 2014, BJP leaders kept silent on this. Under pressure from the Congress and to answer the public in the 2003 Delhi Assembly elections, the then Home Minister LK Advani introduced the Delhi State Bill (2003 Bill No. 68) on 18 August 2003.
In that too the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) was separated from the proposed regime and there was a system to get the police and public administration to work through the Lieutenant Governor. It was referred to the Standing Committee of the Ministry for detailed study. Only two meetings of that committee were held and the Lok Sabha was dissolved. Since then no initiative has been taken in this direction. There has been a conflict between the Central Government with the support of the Congress in 2013 and the AAP, which formed the government on its own since 2015. In such a situation, the role of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi has become important. At such a time, the Central Government has done an experiment by making a non-bureaucrat as the Lieutenant Governor.