Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention in bridging the trust deficit between the Centre and the Delhi government.
Accompanied by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia the meeting between the two, convened at the Prime Minister’s Office around noon, went on for close to half an hour.
Two months ago, Mr. Kejriwal had sought an appointment with Mr. Modi at the peak of the Delhi government’s tussle with the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung’s office, but had been denied due to Mr. Modi’s unavailability for an international tour.
A source termed the meeting an attempt to ‘rebut Mr. Kejriwal’s claim that the Prime Minister was deliberately avoiding meeting him’.
Incidentally, Mr. Kejriwal is scheduled to meet three Union Ministers – M. Venkaiah Naidu , Uma Bharti and Nitin Gadkari – over an initiative dubbed the Yamuna Rejuvenation Blueprint at the Nirman Bhavan on Wednesday evening.
According to another source, the meeting is understood to have been triggered by the latest battle between the AAP-led government and the L-G office over the institution of a commission of inquiry into the CNG fitness scam, which was declared void by the MHA.
“I told the PM that we may have ideological and political differences, but for Delhi’s growth, the State and the Centre need to work together,” Mr. Kejriwal told reporters later.
Fulfil PM vision
He also said that he had offered to fulfil Mr. Modi’s vision of Swachh Bharat and help implement his Digital India initiative in the Capital, but felt that ‘better communication with the Centre’ was a prerequisite for the same.
The Chief Minister reminded Mr. Modi of his own stint as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, a senior Delhi government official said, to register his protest against ‘the Centre’s intervention’ and asked whether ‘declaring void most of the decisions taken by the Delhi government was fair’.
According to sources, Mr. Kejriwal also complained to the Prime Minister about the Delhi Police’s interference in the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB).
“It seems like the Delhi Police are at war with the Delhi government...corrupt officers sitting in the ACB aren’t letting it function,” Mr. Kejriwal said in a reference to Joint CP (ACB) Mukesh Kumar Meena. In response, Mr. Kejriwal was told that the Prime Minister would ‘look into the situation’ and that his legislators always had recourse to ‘legal remedies’.
“I told the PM that we may have ideological and political differences, but for Delhi’s growth, the State and the Centre need to work together”
