CEC Joti acted on orders of his boss: AAP’s Sanjay Singh

Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) AK Joti acted on the instructions of his “maalik” (boss) Narendra Modiji, AAP veteran Sanjay Singh has alleged.

Launching a scathing attack on Joti, Singh said that despite holding the office of CEC, he held a government house in Gujarat.

“Jo vyakti khud do jagah laabh leta hai, woh laabh ki paribhasha bata raha hai (a person who has himself taken benefit at two places is defining ‘office of profit’),” he said.

Singh was targeting Joti, who retired as CEC two days ago on January 22, for recommending the disqualification of 20 AAP legislators.

On January 21, President Ram Nath Kovind approved the Election Commission’s (EC) recommendation disqualifying the legislators who were earlier appointed as Parliament secretaries by the AAP-led Delhi government. The EC observed that the post of Parliament secretary was an “office of profit”.

Singh accused the former CEC of undermining “the constitutional decorum of his office”. He added: “Had he (CEC Joti) taken the decision as per law and the constitutional framework, he wouldn’t have disqualified the membership of the legislators.”

Singh, now Rajya Sabha MP-elect, pointed out that the appointment of Parliament secretaries in states such as Punjab, West Bengal, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh was set aside by the respective high courts, but the legislators were not disqualified.

“I want to ask the CEC that when the Delhi High Court had already quashed the appointment of these Parliament secretaries, then on what grounds did he recommend their disqualification?” he said.

Speaking to Newslaundry, the AAP veteran maintained that the party has full confidence that it will get “justice from the judiciary”.

But if the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court, too, refuse to give relief to the AAP, then the national capital will witness bypolls on 20 Assembly seats. Singh agreed that this would be a referendum on the party, which clinched a historic 67 of 70 Assembly seats in the 2015 Delhi polls.

When asked that shouldn’t the party have followed the due process, that is, passing an amendment Bill and getting the assent of the President before appointing the Parliament secretaries, Singh said “we were very clear that our legislators are not availing of any ‘profit’ from these appointments, hence there should not be any controversy”.

“However, when the controversies started, we passed a Bill and sent it to the President,” he added.

But luck wasn’t in AAP’s favour. Then-President Pranab Mukherjee refused to give his assent, in June 2016, to the Bill aimed to give immunity to the Parliament secretaries from ‘office of profit’.

Speaking about the prospects of the disqualified legislators, Singh said: “In my opinion, in case bypolls are called in Delhi, the party should repeat all 20 legislators (disqualified under the ‘office of profit’ row).”

Listen to Singh’s no-holds-barred conversation with Newslaundry where he speaks about the “importance” of 2G (Sushil Gupta and ND Gupta), Kumar Vishwas, political affairs in the national capital, and much more.