Taking exception to blaming Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on the issue of allotment of chief minister’s bungalow to Atishi, Raj Niwas on Saturday said she shifted into it in violations of all norms and procedures.

In a statement, the Raj Niwas also said the keys of the house were handed over surreptitiously, directly by Shri / Smt. Kejriwal to Ms. Atishi (through their personal staff), as if it was a private property being handed over by one owner to another.   

However, within a span of just about 48 hours, when the house was handed over by Kejriwal and allotted to Atishi, the AamAadmi Party (AAP), its Ministers and even the Chief Minister, resorted to the most devious and diabolic exercise of misleading the people of not only Delhi but the entire country, by way of subverting norms and procedures, hiding facts to this effect and abusing the Lt. Governor incessantly.

Responding to Raj Niwas,  sources in Chief Minister’s Office said, “It’s sad to see this statement by the LG office which is full of abuses and allegations on the elected Government”. “The AAP government is busy working on war footing to revive and fix all the works stopped by the LG in the last few months. These comments by LG are really not worth responding to,”  sources said.

 Giving the sequence of events, it said former Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal handed over the possession and the keys to his erstwhile house 6, Flag Staff Road, to Public Works Department (PWD) on October nine and the house was subsequently allotted to his successor Chief Minister, Ms. Atishi by PWD on October 11 after inventorisation was carried out by PWD a day earlier as per established norms. 

PWD, being the owner of all Government estates, follows this procedure for any government accommodation and this is in line with what the CPWD follows in case of estates / accommodations belonging to the Government of India.

All including the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers, Chief Justice, Judges and other dignitaries are subjected to the same set of norms in the process of vacation / allotment of their accommodations.

The former Chief Minister of Delhi, as indeed the current Chief Minister, who is also the Minister-in-charge of PWD are fully aware of these norms, processes and procedures and violations thereto by them were prima facie deliberate.

It will be in the fitness of things to mention here that 6 Flag Staff Road, where Kejriwal lived and which has now been allotted to Atishi, has a built up area of 1905 sq.mtrs as the residential complex and 500 sq.mtrs as the camp office.

In comparison, the highest categories of Type-8 Bungalows, which are allotted to Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, Judges, Ministers and others, has a built up area of 460 sq.mtrs only with an additional 100 sq.mtrs for other utilities.

However, within a span of just about 48 hours, when the house was handed over by Kejriwal and allotted to Atishi, the AamAadmi Party (AAP), its Ministers and even the Chief Minister, resorted to the most devious and diabolic exercise of misleading the people of not only Delhi but the entire country, by way of subverting norms and procedures, hiding facts to this effect and abusing the Lt. Governor incessantly.

They abused the Lt. Governor attributing political motives to him knowing fully well that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the entire process of vacation or allotment owing to the fact that PWD, the agency concerned is a fully transferred subject directly and totally under the control of the AAP Government and its Ministers as per the constitutional scheme.

As the matter came to light, it came forth that the keys of the house were handed over surreptitiously, directly by Shri / Smt. Kejriwal to Ms. Atishi (through their personal staff), as if it was a private property being handed over by one owner to another.

When the PWD rightfully raised the violations that had been incurred in this exercise, the AAP and its leaders realized that they were on a back foot and therefore, while returning the keys and handing over possession to PWD as per norms on one hand, indulged in a shameful exercise of blaming the Lt. Governor in public domain on the other hand.

For the purpose of brevity, it would suffice to mention that the Chief Minister, who claimed that she would work from the streets, since the house was not allotted to her, conveniently forgot to tell the people of Delhi that she already had a bungalow, 17-AB Mathura Road right beside the Supreme Court of India allotted to her as a residence and a seven star office renovated at a cost of hundreds of crores in Delhi Secretariat at the Players’ Building at ITO.

She had her allotted house as well as the seven star office to work from and need not have indulged into theatrics only for media’s consumption.

It remains a fact that the building plan of the palatial house at 6 Flag Staff Road has not been sanctioned till now by MCD and since this sanction is required before commencement of construction, the completion certificate of the same also has not been issued till now.  The house, therefore, till now is a patently illegal structure.

Be that as it may, the latest exercise undertaken by AAP and its leaders, even as Delhi suffers from the worst of civic infrastructure and services, once again brings to light the mis-governance done by them for the past 10 years.

If they had governed and worked for what they have been elected for, even for two years out of the ten, Delhi would have been in a much better shape and they would not have been blaming all and sundry and abusing the Lt. Governor for their abject failures.