Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) head and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday requesting him to “not stop Delhi’s Budget”, amid an ongoing tussle between the Union and the AAP government. The Delhi budget presentation for the financial year 2023-24 was to be led down on the table by minister Kailash Gehlot on Tuesday. However, the Centre didn’t give a green signal to the presentation of the budget, due to trading charges over allocation under various sectors. 

“This is the first time in the last 75 years’ history, a state’s budget session has been stopped,” he wrote, asking the PM if he hated the residents of Delhi. The letter comes a day after the Central government looked for clarification from the National Capital government on why expenditure on advertisement is more than that on the infrastructure sector before the presentation of the Delhi Budget. 

During a news channel program on Monday, Kejriwal accused the Centre of engaging in “gundagardi” and stated that this was the first time in India’s history that a government’s budget has been put on hold. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) tweeted a video clip of his speech. In addition, the Chief Minister posted on Twitter a news report about the rise in per capita income in Delhi and remarked that despite the daily obstacles being created, Delhi is performing exceptionally well in major fields. Kejriwal further stated that if all governments worked together for the benefit of the people and no obstacles were created, Delhi would grow several times faster. 

The Chief Minister criticised the Centre, while insiders from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) revealed that they have requested clarification from the AAP government regarding their budget proposal. The proposal was criticised for allocating a significant amount of funds towards advertisement infrastructure and comparatively less funding towards the infrastructure and other development projects.