Delhi budget to be presented today

The Delhi budget will be presented today with the Union  Home Ministry giving its approval on Tuesday after receiving a clarification from the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government.

The Centre had asked the Kejriwal government to take into consideration the concerns flagged by the Lieutenant Governor over the excessive allocation made for advertisements and the relatively low funds provided for infrastructure and other development schemes, in the Delhi budget  according to sources.

However, the Kejriwal government had not provided the clarification in time as a result of which the budget could not be presented on Tuesday as scheduled.

The AAP government had alleged that the Centre was obstructing it from presenting the budget.

However, the BJP hit back saying that the Delhi government sat on the clarifications sought for three days and then blamed the Centre for holding back the budget to gain “cheap publicity”.

BJP allegations about AAP misuse of public funds for advertisements have been a recurring event since 2015.

In December last year, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena had ordered that AAP reimburse the government Rs 163.62 crore it illegally spent on advertisements. The recovery notice, issued by the Directorate of Information and Publicity, had triggered a huge political row.