Differences between various administrative wings of the AAP government once again came to light when the services department recently transferred chief secretary K.K. Sharma’s official on special duty (OSD) Ramvir Singh without reportedly informing the chief secretary. Upset over the move by the services department, Mr Sharma on Monday is said to have cancelled his OSD’s transfer by exercising his administrative powers.
The services department, comes under the control of deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia. However, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s secretary Rajendra Kumar is the principal secretary of the services wing.
This is not the first occasion when the chief secretary had been put in an embarrassing situation by the AAP administration. Mr Kejriwal had at one po-int even issued a show-ca-use notice to Mr Sharma to explain why he had sent certain files related to the Delhi police to lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung.
Mr Kejriwal’s notice to the chief secretary was being interpreted in the political circles as a fallout of the feud going on between Raj Nivas and Players Building over a host of contentious issues concerning the national capital. Contrary to convention, the AAP government had also issued a circular stating that the weekly meeting of the HoDs would be chaired by Mr Sisodia. During the Sheila Dikshit government’s 15-year-old rule, the weekly meetings of the HoDs were chaired by the chief secretary.
A senior IAS officer said that the AAP government’s decision to hold the weekly meetings under the chairmanship of the deputy CM was a clear message to the bureaucrats that the ministers were the real administrative heads of their respective departments.
The AAP government had also told the chief secretary not to attend meetings of the Union home ministry to discuss transfers and postings of IAS and IPS officers. The AAP government had told the Union home ministry that Mr Sisodia would represent the city in such meetings. However, the Centre had turned down the city administration’s proposal, saying politicians could not attend these meetings and the city government had to be represented only by the chief secretary.
