The Narendra Modi government found little support outside its ranks when it passed a bill in Parliament on Wednesday that is being seen as a bid to clip the wings of the Arvind Kejriwal dispensation in Delhi.

Some of the parties opposed to the changes sought to be brought in through the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021, staged a walkout as the Rajya Sabha voted it in.

Of all the Opposition parties, the Trinamul Congress made a particular point of being present for the consideration and passage of the bill despite the first phase of Assembly elections in Bengal being just a couple of days away.

Trinamul leader Derek O’Brien made a last-minute effort to delay the voting by urging the Chair to invoke the residuary powers provided under Rule 266 of the Rajya Sabha. However, since Parliament is in session and other bills have been passed, this was not allowed.

With a number of Opposition MPs from the election-bound states unable to turn up for the discussion and some of the parties opposed to the bill staging a walkout, its passage was a foregone conclusion and there was no resistance from the treasury benches when a division (voting) was sought at the initial stage of its passage. The Opposition was vastly outnumbered with 83 votes favouring its passage and only 45 opposed to it.

Subsequently, the leader of the Opposition, Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress, said that since the government was unwilling to take on board their suggestions, including a request for referring the bill to a select committee of the House for further consideration, they were walking out.

Earlier, two parties which normally side with the government — the Biju Janata Dal of Naveen Patnaik and the YSR Congress of Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy — had announced that they would not participate in the vote while articulating their opposition to the bill.

While junior home minister G. Kishan Reddy insisted that no power of the elected government was being taken away, Congress MP Abhishek Singhvi described the bill as an example of coercive federalism.

AAP’s Sanjay Singh likened the bill to “Draupadi’s cheerharan (humiliation)” in the Mahabharat because chief minister Kejriwal had refused Delhi police’s request to convert stadia into jails to lodge protesting farmers.