Can New LG Vinai Saxena Clean Up the Kejriwal Mess in Delhi?
Although now Kejriwal has said that he would work in coordination with new LG Saxena, he can’t be trusted because he tells blatant lies.
By Rakesh Raman
Vinai Kumar Saxena – who took the charge of Delhi Lt. Governor (LG) on May 26 after the resignation of Anil Baijal – has an uphill task to make Delhi a livable city. During the past over 5 years, both Baijal and Delhi chief minister (CM) Arvind Kejriwal have made the city of 30 million people a veritable hell where it has become difficult to live.
Today, Delhi is buried under lethal pollution, extreme corruption, lawlessness, economic slowdown, misgovernance, and political deceit. In the absence of governance, the residents in all parts of Delhi are facing umpteen problems including the scarcity of basic amenities such as healthcare, water, electricity, education, and cleanliness.
Moreover, Kejriwal and his colleagues in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are facing serious corruption charges. A petition has been filed at the anti-corruption authority Delhi Lokayukta and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Government of India, to start investigation into the alleged crime and corruption cases of the ministers of Delhi Government and legislators (MLAs) of AAP headed by Kejriwal.
While corruption is rampant in the Delhi Government, the ugly conflicts between bureaucratic and political factions of the government have exacerbated the already disastrous situation in the national capital.
These days, Kejriwal has been relegated to a mere figurehead role, because a new law of 2021 has given all the administrative powers of Delhi LG. The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2021 made it clear that the term “government” in Delhi means the LG of Delhi and the elected government of Kejriwal cannot take any decision independently.
In other words, the Kejriwal government will have to take LG’s consent before taking any executive action. Since Kejriwal is not able to stomach this harsh reality, he and his party members kept cursing Baijal.
Although now Kejriwal has said that he would work in coordination with new LG Saxena, he can’t be trusted because he tells blatant lies. Currently, Delhi is under the administrative control of different groups of rulers who are stepping on each other’s toes to run the affairs of the city haphazardly.
While the office of LG and the office of Kejriwal are required to work in complete harmony, they are mostly at daggers drawn with each other. Since Kejriwal and his political colleagues in AAP are highly incompetent and lack administrative experience, they often blame LG for their own failures.
In order to hoodwink the Delhi voters, AAP politicians always play dirty politics instead of providing clean governance to citizens. Kejriwal keeps deceiving the people by giving false advertisements to praise his own work.
The tired and lazy LG Baijal kept himself surrounded by corrupt bureaucrats – who instead of working as civil servants – behave as uncivil masters with the public. Baijal himself had such a laid-back approach that he had no interest in resolving public problems. As a result of Kejriwal’s incompetence and Baijal’s lethargy, the people of Delhi have been suffering.
Saxena has said he will work for the people in the city’s streets as their local guardian and would spend limited time in office. But there is hardly any hope that the new LG will be able to clean up the mess in Delhi – particularly because Kejriwal will soon start fighting with the LG.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a journalist and social activist in India. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.
