We leave Bharti's resignation to the conscience of AAP: Congress

While pressure continues to mount on the Aam Admi Party (AAP) government to sack its law minister Somnath Bharti over his ‘racist’ remarks about Ugandan nationals during a controversial raid to bust an alleged drug and sex racket, the Congress party is no mood to rock the boat over issue. Speaking to Firstpost, Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely said,“He (Bharti) took the law into his own hands. The High Court has ordered the Delhi Police to file an FIR in the case. The law must take its course.” Asked whether the Congress, which is keeping the Arvind Kejriwal-led minority government afloat by lending it outside support, would demand Bharti’s resignation, Lovely said, “We are not saying Somnath Bharti should resign. The law should take its own course. We leave it to the inner conscience of the Aam Admi Party. They speak of ethics, so they should take the decision. We are not demanding resignation, we are asking them look into their inner soul.” [caption id=“attachment_1353611” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The Delhi Congress chief has ruled out withdrawing support to the AAP. Ibnlive[/caption] Reacting to Tuesday night’s developments, Lovely said he welcomed Kejriwal’s decision on to call off his dramatic sit-in protest in Central Delhi against the Home Minister. The Delhi Chief Minister in an unprecedented move called a sit-in protest on Monday morning demanding the suspension of Delhi Police officers who had refused to take action in two cases that AAP ministers had taken up (one of the cases being the controversial raid involving Ugandan nationals in Malviya Nagar). “It is good that he has withdrawn the protest. He should now concentrate on administrative work that is within his power and fulfil the promises he has made to the people of Delhi,” said Lovely. When asked to whether the two-day stand-off between the Delhi government and the Centre had strained the AAP-Congress relationship, the Congress leader said, “As far as our relationship is concerned we have always maintained that we have no relationship with AAP. We have only extended our outside support to them so that they can fulfil the promises they made to the people of Delhi.” “The Congress will play the role of Opposition. There is no question of the relationship being strained or not, we don’t have any relationship to begin with,” Lovely said. But why does the Congress want to continue this rocky alliance? And what about recent comments by senior Congress leaders like Jairam Ramesh and P Chidambaram. who said that supporting AAP was an ‘unnecessary decision’ and should be reviewed? Taking the oft-repeated response, Lovely said, “We don’t want to thrust an election on the people of Delhi. And people of Delhi will want to give AAP ample time so that they can fulfil their promises.” “They have been in government for 25 days and I agree with my senior leaders that in these 25 days they (AAP government) have acted in ways that has created unrest among people. But 25 days is a very short period. We need to give them more time,” he said. But how much time the Congress was willing to give the AAP government, Lovely didn’t specify. “I cannot set a time limit. If they work as per the wishes of the people, then may be five years,” he said. Choosing not give his verdict on whether Kejriwal had won or lost in calling off the sit-in protest after the Centre agreed to send the police officers in question on leave, Lovely said, “I don’t think CM should sit on a dharna for the transfer of two police officers. This could have been achieved even without sitting on a dharna… Kejriwal wanted to save his minister. The situation stands now as it stood before : action will be taken after judicial inquiry ordered by the Lieutenant Governor is conducted. What it definitely was is gimmickry.”