Opinion Battle of Delhi
Chief minister has the right to pick his babus. Lieutenant governor should not force a showdown.
Who gets to run Delhi is a non-question since the state has an elected legislative assembly and a chief minister.
Hence, Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung’s move to overrule the chief minister’s preferences in appointments is evidently a case of overreach, which has inevitably led to a confrontation between the two offices. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has a case when he argues that it is the prerogative of his office to decide who gets to be chief secretary.
The chief secretary is the link between the CM and the bureaucracy and trust between the two public servants is absolutely necessary for the smooth running of the government. The LG’s arbitrary action of imposing a bureaucrat of his choice on the government, citing a time lapse, was uncalled for and has caused a further dip in relations between the two offices. What ought to have been a simple administrative matter has now become an absurd showdown, testing the fine demarcation of powers between the two constitutional offices.
The Constitution and the Government of National Capital Territory (GNCT) of Delhi Act, 1991 does allow the LG an executive role in the administrative structure of Delhi, primarily over the police, law and order and land departments. This unique arrangement flows from Delhi’s location as the national capital and seat of the Union government. But the LG must not conclude from this constitutional arrangement that he could boss over the elected government.
It is the chief minister who won the mandate to govern Delhi and elected representatives ought to be the face of the government. Any attempt on the part of the LG to override the legislative assembly in matters within its remit would be construed as him usurping the powers of the elected government. In the present context, it also gives credence to the ruling party’s accusation that the LG is acting at the behest of a hostile Centre.
Kejriwal’s response to the LG has been no less petulant and betrays a lack of maturity unexpected from a politician of his stature. His public comments on bureaucrats border on the defamatory and hardly befit the dignity of his office.
There is reason to suspect that despite being in office for nearly 100 days, the AAP has refused to abandon poll campaign mode. The tendency to demonise institutions of governance — the police and the bureaucracy, for instance — exposes a party that is uncomfortable with office. The AAP may wish to de-bureaucratise governance, but it would still need the babus and the police to deliver a people’s government. No government can always be at war with the world at large and run an administration.
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