Confrontation between LG, AAP govt leads to policy paralysis

NEW DELHI: Since February 14, 2015, after the AAP Convenor Arvind Kejriwal came to power in Delhi with overwhelming majority 67 MLAs out of total 70, the confrontation between the LG and the AAP government over 'who the Boss is' among the two has led to a policy paralysis in the state with bureaucrats left blinking.

Senior officials of Arunachal, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territories cadre had approached the MHA seeking to get posted out of Delhi. The IAS officers and ex-Chief Secretary like S K Srivastava, Arvind Ray, Reena Ray, Anindo Majumdar, Ashutosh Kumar, Sanjiv Khirwal , Neeraj Semwal, Ashish Joshi, Parimal Rai, Jalaj Srivastava, SP Singh, Dharmender, Dharampal, OP Mishra are in the list.

According to sources, bureaucracy in Delhi has been caught in the middle as a hapless tool between the war of attrition being played out between the LG and CM Kejriwal. Kejriwal repeatedly alleged that IAS officers in the city were being provoked by the LG at the behest of the Centre. Kejriwal alleged that officers were not showing files to ministers concerned on the direction of Raj-Niwas.

The Kejriwal government ran into a major block on August 4, 2016, when the Delhi High Court said that LG is over all supreme and the services department came into Raj-Niwas jurisdiction. The AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory)-cadre IAS Officers Association and DANICS Officers Association had jointly passed a resolution on December 13, 2016 against 'misbehaviour' by political executives in the Delhi government.

On February 20, when AAP MLAs alleged thrashing by chief secretary, the level of hostilities between the two reached unprecedented level.