‘Delhi govt fails to distinguish between politics & governance’

There is deep mistrust between the horse rider and the horse. In this case, the horse rider is the Chief Minister and the horses are the civil servants. These horses are trained to win the race, ultimately the race of development has to be won. This race only enables the government to be reelected. In this case, the horse rider does not know how to ride the horse. He is immature, suffering from a complete lack of experience of governance and not even willing to learn from those who have it. This is the worst part. Politicians are not born with experience but they learn. They are good at learning and picking up fast. After Sheila Dikshit became the Chief Minister, she picked up very fast. As of now, there is complete no-confidence between the people who are exercising power and those who are to assist in exercising power.

Yes, but only in extraordinary or emergency situations like when there was a bomb blast in Delhi at around 9 pm in which 15 to 16 people were killed. The cabinet meeting was called at midnight to condemn the terrorist attack and take stock of the situation. But when the current chief secretary Anshu Prakash was called at midnight, it was a routine meeting. Usually, such meetings do not take place at anyone’s residence. The minutes of the meeting have to be prepared and it is the steno who does this. So the chief secretary’s staff also need to be there. So, such meetings do not place at residences unless the concerned minister or the Chief Minister is not well.

There is some misinterpretation because the LG is a representative of the Centre. But this does not mean that each and every time, he will ring up the PMO and ask. He has a role to play as the representative of the Centre. So, I would say that instead of healing the wounds, salt is being put on them by levelling these kinds of allegations.

Politics is there but there is also a way to separate politics from real governance issues. Unfortunately, these people have lost the balance and they don’t know to distinguish between real governance issues and politics of governance. Politics of governance is done with the people and that is an emotional issue but governance is not politics. Governance is to address the hard issues. These people don’t have any idea how to go about them.

We have seen that the statehood demand had been raised before. Sometimes, even Sheila Dikshit used to get frustrated and used to say how she didn’t have any power. But she never allowed these issues to take centrestage. You have to look at the way Delhi is growing. NCR is also integrated in the capital. So almost all decisions affecting Delhi are taken by the Centre. Look at the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Western Peripheral Expressway. All decisions are taken by the Centre as they are all inter-state issues. So, what will Delhi do in such situations with its statehood? In my view, the statehood thing doesn’t work. It is the frustration and greed for more power on part of the elected government. See all over the world. Washington is controlled by the federal government, London is not fully independent too. Several capitals are not independent and are controlled by federal governments of the countries. There is a terror problem which has to be dealt by the Central government. Delhi also has a presence of a huge number of defence personnel. The foreign embassies are here. In all these issues, there is no role of the Chief Minister.