This one is a rarely seen spectacle,
at least in the recent political history of India.
Hopefully, now, with the President's
advice in, attitudinal airs will see some reversal from tomorrow. They both met
him today. Delhi's Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung's meeting with the President
was followed by Delhi's chief minister
Arvind Kejriwal.
President Pranab Mukherjee first
met the Delhi L-G. This meeting was a bit longer than the meeting with Delhi
the Delhi CM. We don't know what transpired there as the Delhi L-G didn't speak
on it. And we cannot expect an statement
from the President in the matter.
And like expected, we know the
AAP side of the way the meeting with the President went. Manish Sisodia, the
deputy Chief Minister of Delh and trusted Kejriwal aide, came out to address
the media after the meeting. He expressed satisfaction over the talks. And
soon, we came to know that he had called a meeting of all Delhi secretaries
tomorrow at 10 AM. He also advised them to read the rulebook before the
meeting.
Manish Sisodia's words told us
the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) gained positives from this meeting. Neutrally, and
objectively, we don't know what transpired there.
But we don't need to wait longer
to know that. It will, hopefully, reflect in the responses.
And we expect the latest round of
tug-of-war between L-G and CM, that scaled up in a full blown Constitutional
crisis, will see moderate stands tomorrow and will gradually tapered out.
The controversy, this time, began
with L-G appointing Shakuntala Gamlin as the acting chief secretary of Delhi. But
Kejriwal was not in her favour.
And in this round of the war
between the Delhi L-G and Delhi CM, officers of the Civil Services became the
goalposts to settle scores.
Kejriwal alleges Shakuntala
Gamlin is anti-people as she favours power distribution companies of the
city-state. Yet she figured on the list sent by Manish Sisodia to the Delhi L-G
to finalize the name of the acting chief secretary in absence of K. K. Sharma
who was on a personal leave.
Kejriwal went open about her,
criticising her and told every file during her temporary tenure would go
through him so that he could personally look for any deviations.
Shakuntala, who has more or less
a non-controversial tenure so far, wrote to the L-G on badmouthing about her.
Though the government accepted
her appointment by the L-G, it removed Anindo Majumdar, Principal Secretary
(Services) for issuing orders of Gamlin's appointment. The L-G objected to it
and rejected the decision by the Delhi government. In response, the officer,
who has an honest image, was issued notice and his was office was sealed.
Later, the Delhi government replaced
him with Rajendra Kumar, a secretary to the CM, yesterday, His appointment was
also declared void by the L-G hours after. After it, without consulting the
L-G, Arvind Kejriwal today appointed Arvind Ray as the Principal Secretary (General
Administration) replacing Rajendra Kumar.
Kejriwal has also ordered the
Delhi government officials to not obey the L-G orders without consulting him
and other Delhi ministers. The L-G met with the Home Minister on this call to
clear the position. He said such orders could not be tolerated.