The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday alleged that governors and and lieutenant governors across the country had been behaving like agents of the Bharatiya Janata Party ever since the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014, PTI reported.

The party’s statement came hours after Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi created a stir, issuing an order that distribution of free rice to villagers in the Union territory should be made “conditional to the certification that the village is open defecation free and free of strewn garbage and plastics”. Later in the day, she rescinded the order.

“The Puducherry lieutenant governor seems to be following in the footsteps of what her Delhi counterpart Anil Baijal has been frequently doing,” the AAP said. “Despite having no power to overrule the elected government according to the Constitution, Baijal in active connivance with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, is leaving no stone unturned in stalling the flagship schemes of the elected Delhi government.”

The party said that Bedi’s order was unjustified and evidence of decisions of elected governments not run by the BJP are “being brazenly overturned in gross misuse of constitutional positions”.

The Delhi Assembly on March 26 passed a resolution directing the AAP government to present a status report on files that have reportedly been delayed or blocked by Baijal’s office. The Delhi High Court later asked the Centre, the Delhi government and the Assembly to respond to a plea seeking to quash the resolution, which BJP MLAs Vijender Gupta, Om Prakash Sharma, Jagdish Pradhan and Manjinder Singh Sirsa had filed.