NEW DELHI: Backed by an absolute majority, the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal looks set for a fight with the federal government and with some senior members of his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after his choice of new chief secretary of Delhi was rejected.
The Kejriwal government has decided to lodge an objection in the strongest terms with the federal home ministry which rebuffed his choice of a bureaucrat as the new chief secretary of Delhi.
The ministry has informed Kejriwal that his choice of R.S. Negi is too junior to succeed D.M. Spolia, who retired Saturday.
The home ministry has instead given a list of three Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers who are senior to Negi — currently chief secretary of Arunachal Pradesh.
Kejriwal government had recommended just one name for the post.
Kejriwal, along with his deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, had met federal home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday with the request to appoint Negi as the New Delhi chief secretary stating he knew the metropolis inside out after having worked in the past as commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
Negi is a 1984 batch IAS officer. The home ministry has pointed that at least a dozen officers senior to him are available for posting and it would be difficult to accommodate Kejriwal’s choice due to service rules.
Sources close to Kejriwal reacted angrily to the news saying appointing the chief secretary is prerogative of the chief minister and home ministry cannot impose its choice on the Delhi government.
“We fail to understand why Negi is not qualified to be chief secretary of Delhi when he is already working as chief secretary of a full-fledged border state of Arunachal Pradesh. If he is qualified enough to be chief secretary of Arunachal Pradesh, then he is good enough to be chief secretary of Delhi too. We suspect the home ministry wants to post one of its favourite bureaucrats to create hurdles in our functioning,” the AAP leader said, making it clear that they would not take Negi’s rejection lying low.
Kejriwal’s desire to take the federal home ministry head-on reflects his growing confidence following AAP’s sweeping victory in the just concluded Delhi assembly elections in which AAP won 67 out of 70 seats.
Sources in the AAP indicated Kejriwal is upset with senior leader Yogendra Yadav for overlooking his instructions and may ease him out of AAP’s apex decision making body Political Affairs Committee (PAC).
Kejriwal is believed to have armed himself with authorisation by the AAP PAC to restructure the panel in which Yadav along with some others who have time and again questioned Kejriwal’s authority as the supreme leader of the party may be shown the door.
Kejriwal is cut up with Yadav for contradicting his public announcement that AAP would concentrate on Delhi alone for the next five years. Yadav had said and is working on preparing AAP to contest polls in four states including Punjab much to the chagrin of Kejriwal.
Yadav, a founding leader of AAP, had accused Kejriwal of developing personality cult around him and held it responsible for AAP’s poor performance in the summer general elections in which the entire top leadership of the party including Kejriwal and Yadav suffered defeats.
Kejriwal has often been accused of being autocratic and intolerant to criticism by some of his colleagues who have since quit the party.
