Brisk developments symptomatic of their ever-troubled, but seldom acknowledged, relationship over the past week have exposed the underlying animosity between the elected Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Delhi government and its own employees across different cadres of civil service.
At the core of the commotion is an alleged premeditated midnight assault on the Capital's senior most babu (bureaucrat), Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, by 11 AAP MLAs not only at the residence-cum-camp office, but also in the presence, of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, too, was present.
The incident, which exploded across various media last Tuesday morning, sent shock waves through the country's bureaucracy in its entirety with everyone from civil servant associations to the Union Home Ministry taking notice and the incident becoming the subject of an ongoing police investigation.
In his police complaint, Mr. Prakash said he was summoned to Mr. Kejriwal’s residence at midnight, February 19, to discuss the difficulty in releasing advertisements to mark the AAP’s three years in power which, however, was denied by the Chief Minister's Office. The AAP said the meeting was called to discuss the reasons why about 2.5 lakh families had not been able to get their rations under the PDS last month due to faulty implementation of Aadhaar.
An alleged physical attack on a sitting Delhi Minister, Imran Hussain and AAP leader and Delhi Dialogue Commission Vice-Chairman Ashish Khetan, followed hours later at the Delhi Secretariat. Addressing the media after the incident, Mr. Khetan said there was an “unruly and aggressive mob” of around 150 people at the Secretariat. He said the crowd suddenly ran towards him without any provocation “shouting pro-BJP slogans.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Prakash was found to have sustained injuries on the face as per a medical report which was then handed over to the Delhi Police following which AAP Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan surrendered and AAP Deoli MLA Prakash Jarwal was detained and later placed under arrest.
The two AAP legislators' bail pleas were later dismissed by a city court which sent them to 14 days' judicial custody.
Targeting the Delhi Police and Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal, the AAP blamed them for not acting on the complaints of assault on Mr. Hussain and Ashish Khetan. The party also alleged that this was a ploy by the BJP to destabilise the Delhi government. The AAP also staged a protest outside Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's residence which saw the detention of 89 people including Delhi Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam and five MLAs .
Work at the Delhi Secretariat was hit due to the prevailing circumstances what with several meetings of civil servants' associations throughout the day in addition to a candle light protest; three associations representing officials of the IAS, Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Civil Service and the Delhi Administrative Subordinate Services passed a joint resolution condemning the “abhorrent incident involving verbal and physical assault of the Chief Secretary of Delhi” to have “ only written communication with the political executive ” till Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal apologised for the alleged assault after mulling wearing helmets, government officials began wearing black bands to work in pursuance of their 'silent and peaceful protest' against the Delhi government.
A day later, they added attending phone calls and visiting the camp offices or residences of members of the political executive, including Mr. Kejriwal's, to their not-to-do list and observing five minutes' silence at the beginning of lunch hour every day.
The Delhi government retaliated by issuing orders to the Education and Art, Culture and Languages Departments to submit written progress reports every week.
AAP legislators serving as members on a Delhi Assembly committee upped the ante against the bureaucracy by recommending privilege proceedings for contempt of House against three Indian Administrative Service officials including Mr. Prakash. Members of the Questions and Reference Committee, headed by Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla, recommended action against Mr. Prakash for skipping deliberations in relation to alleged irregularities in a State-owned cooperative bank.
The proverbial twist in the tale came when the Chief Minister’s adviser V.K. Jain, according to the police, said that he had seen Mr. Prakash being manhandled. Special Public Prosecutor in the case Atul Srivastava, appearing before the court of metropolitan magistrate Shefali Barnala Tandon, cited the recording of Mr. Jain’s statement before the magistrate, wherein he admitted to the Chief Secretary being assaulted at a late-night meeting at the Chief Minister’s residence on February 19. ( Saw Chief Secretary being manhandled: CM’s adviser ).
The AAP alleged that he was pressured by the Delhi Police to change his statement from what was initially recorded before the police ( Police pressured V.K. Jain, says AAP ).
The Chief Minister maintained a silence on the issue for three days till, however, a police raid at his residence in connection with investigation in the case following which he asked Mr. Baijal for an appointment to discuss the issue at Raj Niwas along with the Cabinet of Ministers. Mr. Baijal condemned the incident while Mr. Kejriwal said protests by officials had affected the government’s work. Addressing a press conference at the CM’s residence, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said both Mr. Kejriwal and Mr. Baijal had agreed to talk to the officials, who have been protesting by restricting communication with the political executive ( L-G condemns ‘attack’ on CS, Kejriwal says governance ).
On the same day, however, AAP MLA from Uttam Nagar Naresh Balyan stirred another controversy for the party after he said that “officials who delay files of public interest should be beaten up” ( Chief Secretary deserved to be beaten up: AAP MLA ).
In line with what sources in the bureaucracy said would be their resolve to “fight fire with fire” Delhi government officials also took to social media to share an instance of what they termed was “misbehaviour” by AAP Sangam Vihar MLA Dinesh Mohaniya towards a municipality engineer ( Officials accuse MLA of misbehaviour ). Updates of alleged instances of assault continued to be shared by the said handle on Twitter ith seemingly no end, or hope of a thaw, between the political executive and the bureaucracy in sight till Saturday evening.
