On February 14, 2015, exactly one year after he had stepped down as Chief Minister for 'not being allowed' to introduce the Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill at the conclusion of his premature stint at the helm of the Delhi government, Arvind Kejriwal found himself at the same political crossroads.
The very reason behind the evolution of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) — symbolised by a broom that primarily sought to clean up Delhi’s ‘dirty politics’, deliver graft-free governance and was chosen as item number one on his party’s 70-point manifesto — was Mr. Kejriwal's intended crusade against corruption through the Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill.
The legislation, according to popular public opinion, is credited with triggering an electoral tidal wave that would bestow upon him a never-before ‘historical mandate’ of 67 out of total 70 seats that constitute Delhi’s legislature.
Promising to ‘work 24 hours to enact the (Jan Lokpal) Bill’, Mr. Kejriwal, being sworn in as the eighth Chief Minister of Delhi at a public spectacle sans the usual VIP bandobast at north Delhi's Ramlila Maidan, would reiterate his ambition to make Delhi ‘India’s first corruption-free city’ in five years.
But, as fate would have it, the road to delivering on the most significant of his promises — the Delhi Jan Lokpal Bill was passed by the Assembly in November and the anti-corruption mechanism both within and beyond government departments has, arguably, been strengthened among the seeming elimination of 'avenues of corruption' — was destined to be a turbulent one for Mr. Kejriwal as events over the following 12 months would amply illustrate.
Battleground ACB
The newly sworn-in Chief Minister's first directives consisted of resurrecting ‘1031’ — the anti-corruption helpline which was admittedly his pet project from his 49-day stint in power, brain-storming aimed at adding more teeth to the internal vigilance mechanism at government departments and efforts to procure manpower for a separate wing of the bureaucracy to be dedicated to cracking down on graft.
It was in line with this that one of the first communications bearing his signature as Chief Minister would aim at seeking the transfer of recent Magsaysay awardee and Indian Forest Service (IFS) official Sanjeev Chaturvedi as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) for the Delhi government's Directorate of Vigilance (DoV).
Necessary clearances from the BJP-led Centre are yet to be procured close to a year later.
The following month, the AAP government would, during one of its maiden Assembly sessions, pass a resolution to 'take over the ACB' through a resolution against a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notification curtailing the operational jurisdiction of the unit to Delhi government employees back in July, 2014.
The resolution, followed by re-opened investigations in the CNG Fitness Scam of 2002, would trigger an all-out war between the Centre and the State for months to come.
Even as the AAP government would present its 100-day report card to the general public in the heart of the Capital, a notification issued by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung declared the appointment of joint commissioner of police Mukesh Kumar Meena over Surender Singh Yadav, an additional commissioner of police heading the ACB. The two would come close to physical confrontation within a fortnight of brushing shoulders at the common official premises.
When the AAP couldn’t save its helpline
In late July, just days before the physical confrontation between the ACB’s ‘twin chiefs’, helpline number 1031 was ‘abruptly scrapped’ and, effectively, so was its capability of logging 1,500 to 2,000 graft complaints on a daily basis of which, its is claimed, at least one fresh case of corruption would emerge per week.
As a result, according to statistics, the ACB, which registered over two dozen cases between April 20 and June 23 alone, would lodge just 10 more cases from July to December, 2015. After the ACB and the helpline were, effectively, 'snatched away' from it, the DoV now records complaints on its own and claims to have taken action against 40 to 45 of its own officials between June and early January this year.
AAP's own bad eggs
A Law Minister , followed by his cabinet colleague in charge of Environment, a senior bureaucrat and, finally, his own right-hand man and confidant – Mr. Kejriwal’s purportedly relentless anti-graft credentials ensured strict action against insiders accused of graft, too.
Beginning from sacking his Law Minister Jitendra Singh Tomar – who was accused of holding a fake law degree – to recommending a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe against Asim Ahmed Khan for allegedly accepting a bribe from a builder: the Chief Minister went to town with exemplary action against his own as and when accusations of wrong-doing against them came to light.
