No word yet on meeting between Delhi CM, officers

NEWDELHI: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday resumed office after a 10-day medical leave even as Delhi government bureaucrats continued to wait for a meeting with him to discuss safety issues. Kejriwal, who had gone to Bengaluru, got back to work on Monday morning and attended the launch of the ‘happiness curriculum’, a new course to be taught in classes nursery to 8 in Delhi government schools.

Later in the day, the chief minister convened meetings related to water and environment.

Officers, who continued to attend meetings called by ministers, said they had not received any communication about their scheduled discussion with Kejriwal until Monday evening.

“No information has been conveyed to us as of now about the meeting. We continue to wait for the chief minister to give us a date and time,” said a member of the IAS association on condition of anonymity. An advisor to the CM said no decision had been taken yet on the meeting. “Only the chief minister will take a call on this. He returned only on Sunday,” the official said.

Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia and his cabinet colleagues Satyendar Jain and Gopal Rai had staged a nine-day sit-in at the visitor’s room of the L-G’s office from June 11, demanding a direction from Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal to bureaucrats to end their alleged strike.

The bureaucrats had been boycotting meetings with ministers after the alleged assault on chief secretary Anshu Prakash by AAP legislators at the CM’s residence on February 19. The impasse ended after the CM made a public appeal to the officers to call off their strike and assured them of safety at work.

The officers started attending meetings from June 19 on an assurance that a meeting will be held between them and Kejriwal to discuss issues related to the conduct of legislators.

After returning from Bengaluru, Kejriwal on Sunday evening launched the Aam Aadmi Party’s full statehood campaign for Delhi in a mega event organised at the Indira Gandhi indoor stadium. “If the PM fulfils his promise of granting Delhi full statehood, his party will once again win all seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital in 2019. If not, then in the next election, he should be ready to be left empty-handed,” Kejriwal said.

Another advisor said Sisodia had contacted Anshu Prakash and the secretary of the IAS AGMUT Association, Manisha Saxena, to discuss their issues.

But the association maintained they would discuss the matter only in the presence of the chief minister.