Amid continued tension and conflict between the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP regime and the state bureaucracy in Delhi over alleged assault on Chief Secretary (CS) Anshu Prakash by two AAP legislators during a meeting at Chief Minister Kejriwal’s residence on 19 February night, the AAP government is planning to live-stream all official meetings on the state government’s website.
Sources told The Statesman that this move is aimed at ensuring transparency in the functioning of the government and to tackle allegations from bureaucrats that they had been humiliated during meetings with Ministers.
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According to the AAP government’s proposal, all official meetings would be live-streamed on the Delhi government’s website. A live feed would be available on this website along with audio and video that the people could easily access.
“Through this live stream, people will be able to know who spoke what in these meetings, be it the elected representatives or officials,” sources said.
They said the government was also planning to put all file movements and file notings online for people to see who had been sitting on a file for how long, who cleared it and who wrote what on a particular file.
If the Kejriwal Cabinet clears the proposals to live-stream official meetings and live-track the movement of internal files, the upcoming state Budget will have separate allocations for these proposals.
The CS had on 20 February alleged that he was beaten up by two AAP MLAs, Amanatullah Khan and Prakash Jarwal, during a late-night meeting at the CM ‘s residence in Kejriwal’s presence. The two legislators were subsequently arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
The AAP and the CM’s Office have rejected these charges as unfounded and baseless, alleging that they were part of a “conspiracy” to discredit the Kejriwal government.
Following the incident, the IAS, DANICS and Delhi Administration Subordinate Service (DASS) ~ which represent the officers and employees of the Delhi government ~ had decided to boycott meetings with the CM, his ministers or MLAs till Kejriwal apologises and proper action is taken against the accused.
To break the ice between the AAP government and the state bureaucracy, Kejriwal along with his Ministers went to meet Lt Governor Anil Baijal on 23 February to apprise him about the disruption in the functioning of the state government due to absence of officers in government meetings, and to seek his intervention in defusing the crisis.
The standoff however continues till date, with Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia Monday again urging the LG to order all officers to resume work with immediate effect.
In a letter to the LG, Sisodia said despite the LG’s assurance to ensure that the officers immediately returned to work and performed their duties to the fullest, the officers have been continuing to boycott meetings convened by their respective Ministers.
Meanwhile, on their part, the state bureaucracy on Monday demanded action “as per law” against CM Kejriwal and his deputy Sisodia in the CS assault matter.
The state employees, including officers from IAS, DANICS, and DASS, said they would continue to communicate with Ministers only in writing until Kejriwal and Sisodia give a public apology over the matter.
The Joint Forum of Delhi Government Employees appealed to the LG and Delhi Police Comissioner Amulya Patnaik to take action against Kejriwal and Sisodia in the CS assault case.
Its resolution charged that instead of apologising and admitting their “mistake”, the CM and his deputy were in a “denial mode”. “This shows that they were a part of the conspiracy and since they are specifically identified in the FIR, we appeal to LG and the Commissioner of Police to take action as per law against CM & Dy CM,” the resolution said.
“Therefore, the Joint Forum resolves that all Delhi Government employees will continue to work through formal written means of communication,” it said. The Joint Forum also rejected mediation by Delhi minister Rajender Pal Gautam between the government and the employees.
