Delhi govt reaches out to LG
BROKERING TALKS Sisoda said Baijal has assured the cabinet he would speak to bureaucrats to resolve the impasse
NEW DELHI: Three days after an alleged assault on chief secretary Anshu Prakash led to a stand-off between the Delhi government and its bureaucracy, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues reached out to lieutenant governor Anil Baijal for a solution.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, deputy chief minister Manish Sisoida said that the L-G had assured the cabinet that he would speak to the bureaucrats to resolve the impasse. Chief minister Kejriwal also stated that Baijal assured him of taking steps so that officers start “functioning normally”.
In a response to the meeting, the L-G office released a statement saying that “steps needed to be taken to remove the mistrust between the government employees and the elected government so that the development of Delhi and public interest do not get adversely affected.”
The council of ministers met the L-G after a Delhi Police team conducted search operations at the chief minister’s residence and seized hard disks of 21 CCTV camera system installed there.
To resolve the ongoing impasse, Sisodia said that the CM and the cabinet will also talk to officers to avoid any such situation in future.
The deputy CM said that he was grateful to Baijal that he was looking into the issue from the perspective of governance in Delhi.
When asked whether Kejriwal would concede to the demand of government officials and apologise, Sisodia said, “I think the incident of that day (regarding alleged assault on chief secretary) is being narrated incorrectly.”
“We are also against violence. We have videos (of environment minister Imran Husain being manhandled and his aide thrashed) which were aired on television channels,” Sisodia said in response to a question about L-G’S statement on violence.
Terming the assault on the chief secretary as “unfortunate” L-G office said that there was “no place for violence” in a democratic and civilised society and no government can fulfil its promises to the people if the employees feel “demoralised and insecure”.
Earlier in the day, a 55-strong police team had swooped down on the residence of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in north Delhi’s Civil Lines to look for ‘scientific evidence’ in the case of alleged assault on Delhi’s chief secretary Anshu Prakash.
While the police found that the camera recordings were over 40 minutes behind the actual time, the AAP reacted sharply and called the search a violation of law as there was no prior intimation.
Steps (are) needed to be taken to remove the mistrust between the government employees and the elected government so that the development of Delhi and public interest do not get adversely affected. STATEMENT FROM OFFICE OF LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR ANIL BAIJAL