Further, close to 75 percent of the budgetary support for the Delhi Government is allocated by the central government. Without this support, the city of Delhi has very few revenue-generation avenues, and it is not endowed with natural resources to monetise like coal or natural gas. With such high levels of monetary dependency, any government in Delhi will need to toe the line of the central government to implement any sort of structural reforms. It is due to this dependence that most of the work done by municipal corporations in other metropolitan cities is seen delegated to the state government.

As of now the primary argument is that having a Legislative Assembly allows for better representation of the potpourri of residents in Delhi from the length and breadth of India. Going by that logic, though, the city of Mumbai would also need a state government of its own. But as one can see, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the Maharashtra state government are doing a fine job of keeping the financial capital on its toes despite its fair share of woes.

A second election in two years (entitling an expense of around Rs 100 crore on the exchequer) and the narratives that have shaped around it have undermined the strategic importance of Delhi as the seat of the central government. As the national capital and a city that houses the Parliament along with the Supreme Court , important defence establishments and monuments of national pride, like the India Gate, Delhi definitely needs a more directly accountable governance structure.

Conceding to the demands of granting ‘statehood’ to Delhi would amount to re-inventing the wheel of governance and bring to the table a new set of issues. What Delhi needs now is to look at readily available models like Washington DC, where an empowered mayor works along with a council under the direct guidance of the United States Congress that has the right to review and overturn (if necessary) laws passed by the Council.

An efficient municipal corporation under the direct oversight of the central government may work in Delhi’s favour. Such a model would help re-enforce the strategic importance of the city. It would not be in our national interests to allow our capital city to become a laboratory for political experiments. The Delhi CM has already gone on record stating that they would appeal against the Delhi High Court verdict in the Supreme Court. It is expected that the Supreme Court would intervene in the present state of affairs to make sure that a more accountable and credible structure is made available to the people of Delhi at the earliest.

Ranjeet Rane

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