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Contrary to claims of the Arvind Kejriwal government, ThePrint found most bureaucrats in their offices, working.

New Delhi: Over the past four days, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi has been accusing its bureaucracy of being on a “strike”, and as a result, stalling all of the government’s development works. But when ThePrint did the rounds across the Capital, it found that most of Delhi’s bureaucrats were in their offices, discharging their duties.

The “strike” is at the heart of the current standoff between the IAS officers of Delhi and the Arvind Kejriwal government, who have been at loggerheads over a number of issues. The AAP government accuses the IAS officers of deliberately ignoring the elected representatives on the instructions of the LG, and for not working on their files.

Chief minister Kejriwal and three of his cabinet colleagues — deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and ministers Gopal Rai and Satyendar Jain — have been holding a sit-in at lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal’s office since Monday, demanding that he end the “strike”, and approve the government’s proposal for home delivery of rations. Jain and Sisodia have since begun an indefinite fast.

Most in offices

When ThePrint visited the offices of the deputy commissioners, SDMs, district magistrates, joint secretaries and secretaries on 13 and 14 June, it found most of the bureaucrats in their offices.

A senior IAS officer in the secretariat showed ThePrint his appointment diary of the last one month.

“If I am on strike, then who is clearing all of these appointments? The files you see here have come in the morning. I’ve to clear all of them by tomorrow,” he said.

In the North district, where a demolition drive is on against illegally constructed buildings, an IAS officer said most of the bureaucracy turns up for work every day.

“It really takes courage to speak such blatant lies. All my officers are working every single day,” said the officer posted in the district.

In the West district, officials attended to the grievances of the public and then participated in a cleanliness drive. An IAS officer serving in the West district told ThePrint, “There has been no change in our routine. There are awareness campaigns going on and we are also working on election-related issues. So where is the time for strike?”

The officers avoided coming on record saying “they didn’t want to be part of this mud-slinging”. They, however, defended themselves, through documents, saying they have been coming to offices regularly and discharging their duties.

A senior secretary in the Delhi government also alluded to the alleged assault on chief secretary Anshu Prakash, head of bureaucracy in the capital, who had accused AAP MLAs of attacking him during a late-night meeting at Kejriwal’s residence on 19 February.

“If something so unfortunate can happen to the chief secretary and that too in the presence of the chief minister and deputy chief minister, how can we be sure about our security? Still, all the officers are attending cabinet and statutory meetings,” the officer said.

The AAP countered, wondering why the bureaucrats weren’t attending meetings called by ministers. The party’s Rajya Sabha MP, Sanjay Singh, also pointed to the statement issued by the IAS AGMUT Association on June 12 —IAS officers in the Capital are a part of the body — to claim that officers were not doing any work.

“In their statement, they are accepting that they protest for five minutes every day. Only major work they can count in the last four months is the budget. Isn’t it an acceptance that they are on strike?”

The statehood issue

The Aam Aadmi Party’s tussle with the L-G’s office has been a long-standing one. It has its roots in Delhi being a union territory, and as a result, a complex administrative structure. Over the years, even before the Kejriwal government took over, the issue of whether the elected government held sway over the L-G has been widely debated.

The AAP government suffered a setback in 2016 when the Delhi High Court ruled that as the “administrative head”, the L-G enjoyed supremacy in administrative matters. It has taken the issue to the Supreme Court, where a five-judge bench reserved its verdict.

Different parties, the BJP, Congress and now AAP, have demanded full statehood for Delhi and have also promised the people of Delhi to fight for the full statehood in their respective manifestos.

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