Cong-BJP complicity helped Jahan win Haj panel poll: AAP

New Delhi: The AAP on Thursday alleged that it was because of the "complicity" of the Congress and the BJP that Kausar Jahan from the saffron party was elected to the Delhi State Haj Committee chairperson's post.

In a setback to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi, Jahan on Thursday got three of the five votes cast by the panel's members in the poll held at the Delhi Secretariat. She is the second woman to be elected to the post. AAP national spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj at a press conference accused Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) V K Saxena of indulging in "utter dishonesty" while nominating members for the Delhi Haj Committee. "He has no powers to nominate members but he did and indulged in dishonesty with the people of Delhi," the legislator alleged.

Saxena nominated Congress councillor Nazia Danish to the committee and "this was not right", and in the end, she abstained from voting in the election, thereby ensuring the "BJP candidate's victory", Bhardwaj alleged. "I have been seeing the news that it is for the first time that BJP worker Kausar Jahan has become Haj committee chairperson. It is being portrayed that the BJP has won a big election. It is an election comprising six members," Bhardwaj said.

The committee's members are BJP MP Gautam Gambhir, AAP MLAs Abdul Rehman and Haji Yunus, Congress councillor Danish, Muslim theology expert Mohammad Saad, and Jahan as a member from Muslim voluntary organisations. Bhardwaj claimed that had Danish voted for the BJP, she would have been questioned by her community.

"Had she voted for the AAP there would have been a tie. But she abstained from voting. This means that there was complicity between the Congress and the BJP that ensured that a woman who follows the BJP ideology is elected to the top post," he said. Senior AAP leader Atishi lashed out at the LG, saying Saxena has been taking decisions "unconstitutionally" despite not holding "independent decision making powers." The three votes received by Jahan included those of Gambhir, Saad and Kausar herself.

"Even the scholar, Mohamamad Saad, when he was asked today at the meeting about his degree, he said that he will get it within two-and-a-half years," Bhardwaj claimed. Atishi said: "The LG doesn't have any independent decision making power except for three - police, land and law and order." "According to the Supreme court order, the LG is bound to follow the advice of the council of ministers, and that there is no authority vested in the LG to take decisions independently," she said.

The AAP leader alleged that the LG "does not follow" the Constitution and he considers himself to be above the law. "The LG has nominated members for the Delhi State Haj Committee unconstitutionally. He should remember that the country's law and Constitution is above everyone in this country. He should also remember that he is not a BJP representative here, he is the LG of the national capital," she said. Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva said Jahan's victory shows the growing trust and faith of Muslims in the party. "Congratulations to Kausar Jahan on being elected as the Delhi Haj Committee chairperson. The victory of the BJP-affiliated candidate in the Delhi Haj Committee makes it clear that now the Muslim community is also eager to join the country's development stream Shri @narendramodi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi)," Sachdeva said in a tweet in Hindi.