‘Please, don’t stop Delhi budget’: CM Arvind Kejriwal to PM Modi

NEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arivind Kejriwal wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday requesting him not to stop the national capital’s budget.”It is the first time in the country’s 75-year history that a state budget has been stopped. Why are you angry with the people of Delhi,” Kejriwal wrote. “The people of Delhi are pleading with folded hands, please pass our budget,” he said.In the latest development that has escalated the face-off between the Center and the Delhi government, the Aam Aadmi Party was virtually stopped by the Union ministry of home affairs from presenting its annual budget in the Assembly over queries on its proposed expenditure on advertisements and publicity in the 2023-24 financial year.The Delhi government, however, claimed that the budget allocation for advertisements and publicity was the same as last year and it had proposed to spend almost 40 times more on infrastructure development. “The concerns raised by MHA are irrelevant and this has been done seemingly only to scuttle the budget,” said Delhi finance minister Kailash Gahlot.