As Delhi goes under, exactly who is running the Capital?

In the past month, the Delhi International Airport has seen water logging and damage due to rain, the Capital’s coaching hub Old Rajinder Nagar has seen three civil service aspirants drown and another die of electrocution, while incidents of people falling into drains has caused at least two deaths.

Every such incident is followed by a now-familiar spectacle – of the Delhi government, minus Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who is in jail, Lt Governor V K Saxena and the AAP-led Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) trading charges over who is responsible.

The relationship between the AAP government in Delhi and the office of the Lt Governor, nominated by the BJP-led Centre, has been fraught since the start, with the Kejriwal-led party dealing humiliating electoral defeats to the BJP at the height of its Narendra Modi wave. However, the tension has been dialled up since Saxena took over two years ago, and is seen as having reached a point of no reconciliation now.

A govt with its ‘hands tied’

Last week, Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj released a video clip of a meeting he held with Delhi Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar and other top officials, to underline their “indifference” and “defiance” when shown evidence that Delhi’s drains weren’t desilted even as claims contrary to this were made on files.

The AAP government has a reason to feel hobbled at the hands of the Centre, particularly when it comes to control over officials – as Bharadwaj was seeking to underline. Last year, the Centre passed an ordinance nullifying a Supreme Court Constitution Bench judgment that had been passed days earlier, which had said: “… if the government is not able to control and hold to account the officers posted in its service, then its responsibility towards the Legislature as well as the public is diluted”.

But the ordinance did just that. Later passed as an amendment to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, it created a National Capital Civil Service Authority with the power to recommend transfer and posting of all Group A officers and officers of DANICS serving in Delhi, as well as to take disciplinary action against them. The final say in the Authority rests with the Lt Governor.

The Delhi government challenge to the amendment is still pending in the Supreme Court. Its hands tied due to this, the AAP has also been fighting cases against its top leaders. Apart from CM Kejriwal and former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia (who has now been in jail for more than a year), several leaders of the party are under the scanner of Central agencies.

The government is also one short of a minister in the seven-member Cabinet, with its former Social Welfare Minister Raaj Kumar Anand quitting the party to first join the BSP and then the BJP.

This has meant that, like it was when Sisodia was the Deputy CM and former minister Satyendar Jain was arrested, the bulk of departments are with one minister – Aitishi. While there have been grumblings within the ranks over the unequal distribution of departments, the government has maintained that work would not not have suffered if it were not for the “non-cooperation” of officers.

AAP, the perpetual ‘fighter’

However, the counter-argument is that the AAP government has not tried to find a way to work with the Centre, opting for confrontation instead – unlike the previous Congress government led by Sheila Dikshit, for example, which functioned for a time under the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

In several interviews, Dikshit spoke about how she managed to convince the Centre to approve most of the projects that she pitched.

That doesn’t mean there were no issues. Dikshit, for example, was at odds with the Centre over the Congress demand for full statehood. Months before the Commonwealth Games, with a Congress government at the Centre, several Delhi officials were transferred out without her consent. Dikshit was seen as having fallen out of favour with the high command, which did not exactly spring to her defence when she was slapped with allegations of corruption over the Commonwealth Games.

The Delhi gangrape incident of December 2012, which saw widespread protests across the city, pitted Dikshit even more strongly against the Centre, with the CM pointing out that law and order was not under her control.

While admitting there were incidents of tension, a senior Congress leader said there was a crucial difference. “Dikshit knew how to find the middle ground. The AAP’s tenure has been marked by one confrontation after another.”

When pointed out this, AAP leaders argue that the Congress never battled the circumstances it has been facing for nine years. “Was Sheila Dikshit’s office ever raided by the CBI, months after her tenure began? Were cases filed against her and her ministers? The AAP’s graph, where within 12 years of formation we have had three successive governments in Delhi, a government in Punjab, MLAs in other states and councillors in several states is what worries the BJP,” a senior AAP leader said.

Besides, the leader said, “The biggest difference is that the control of services was with Dikshit. If I don’t have the power to act against an official, why should I expect them to work as per my direction?”

In this lasting faceoff between the two power centres, work in several departments of Delhi is at a standstill, particularly in PWD and the Delhi Jal Board. Several road redevelopment projects have not moved for several months. The Delhi Jal Board has not begun projects such as laying new sewer lines in Lajpat Nagar, or pipelines in Sangam Vihar – all of which has contributed to the monsoon chaos.

With the BJP expected to get a bigger say in the MCD after the Supreme Court aldermen verdict, confrontation is now expected there as well. The AAP is in a majority in the MCD House – the first time in more than 15 years that the BJP does not have control over it – but now, courtesy the alderman, the BJP is set to have a decisive voice in Standing Committees, which hold financial powers.

Multiplicity of authorities

Cooperative governance in Delhi was never going to be an easy task given the complex power distribution in Delhi – a Union territory with special status and a Legislature. So, Delhi’s land, law and order and policing come under the Centre, as do services now, while the Lt Governor is recognised as the administrator of the city.

Then there is the multiplicity of authorities. There are at least six different agencies responsible for cleaning drains, including the MCD, Delhi Jal Board, DDA and the Irrigation and Flood Control Department; while land is owned by different agencies such as the DDA, MCD, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, Forest Department, Land and Development Office, Railways and Defence.

At some point in the last 20 years, all three main political parties in the city – the AAP, Congress and BJP – have sought full statehood for Delhi. But, significantly, after the AAP came to power, the BJP has backed off the demand. The Congress is, at best, lukewarm.