A day after the water regulator at Indraprastha broke down, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party government and Raj Niwas were on Friday at loggerheads again over officials failing to obey the elected government’s orders.
At a press conference, Water Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj questioned Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena over the delay in seeking assistance from the Army and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
“We requested several officers to alert the NDRF and help us control the situation, but they did not respond last night. We are grateful that the NDRF responded in the morning, but it would have been better had they come earlier,” he told reporters, with Mr. Saxena, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and PWD Minister Atishi present.
Responding to the Minister, the L-G said, “This is the time for teamwork, not blaming each other. I could say a lot of things too, but it is not necessary at the moment.”
In a tweet, AAP said, “Officials have not been obeying orders since the ‘black ordinance’ came into power, they only respond to the L-G. If this was any other state, officers would have been sacked and put in jail for not listening to their government and putting the lives of their people at risk.”
Hitting back, a Raj Niwas official said Mr. Bharadwaj indulged in “gross and uncalled-for behaviour”, adding that the NDRF was not responsible for carrying out engineering works. Sources in the L-G’s office said the Irrigation and Flood Control Department has fully functional wings to handle the situation.
Meanwhile, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva accused AAP of playing politics. “The Delhi government did not take necessary steps to prevent the flood situation from worsening and today after the situation got out of hand. The Arvind Kejriwal government is playing politics even on the natural disaster of flood,” he added.
