Legislative Assembly
National Capital Territory of Delhi

“This House resolves the following: In keeping with the decades-old demand of the residents of National Capital Territory of Delhi for a better quality of life commensurate with their contribution to the country’s economy, which have been strongly and unambiguously reflected in the views expressed by Hon’ble Members of this august House, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, must take all necessary legal and legislative steps to declare NCT of Delhi a full-fledged state without any further delay; This House notes with extreme disappointment that successive Central Governments have without any valid justification attempted to undermine the basic rights of the people of Delhi by denying them statehood; People of Delhi can no longer be kept at the mercy of a Central Government appointed Lieutenant Governor, who has no accountability towards the public and enjoys absolute power without any responsibility; Elected representatives are directly accountable to the voters and are rightly questioned by the people on issues affecting their daily lives and developmental issues. It is, therefore, beyond any legal and reasonable understanding how a politically nominated LG be the super-boss of a democratically elected Council of Ministers which is collectively responsible to the Legislative Assembly; Ever since 1952 and then later in 1993, when the Legislative Assembly was set-up in its present form for NCT of Delhi, every single elected Delhi government has strongly demanded statehood in order to be able to fulfill the aspirations of the people; In 2003, the then Hon’ble Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Mr LK Advani had on 18th August 2003 presented the Constitution Amendment Bill and the Bill for statehood of Delhi in the Lok Sabha; The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, headed by the then Chairman Mr Pranab Mukherjee in its 106th Report tabled in Parliament in December 2003 had strongly endorsed the Bill. Unfortunately, however, due to dissolution of the Lok Sabha a few months later, the Bill lapsed. Strangely, no attempt was made to revive the Bill after that despite the same party having been in power at the Centre and in Delhi for 10 years since 2004; This House is of the view that now since almost 16 years have passed since the previous Delhi Statehood Bill was presented in Parliament and there were some shortcomings in that Bill, therefore the MHA must consult the elected government to be on the same page about the fresh draft Bill; This House resolves that the NDMC area in Delhi, which is governed by the NDMC Act be kept under the exclusive control of the Central government and the rest of NCT of Delhi be declared a full-fledged state; Therefore, the people of Delhi will not tolerate any further unjustified delay in granting them their rights, which have been denied for decades despite promises having been made by all political parties repeatedly in their election campaigns; This House strongly demands that the MHA must place the feelings of the people of Delhi before both Houses of Parliament in the form of a Constitution Amendment Bill to grant full statehood for Delhi.”