Having climbed up the ladder of bureaucracy from a clerk to the top bureaucrat, the retired IAS officers from Punjab, Jasbir Singh Bir joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday.
Bir joined AAP in the presence of party’s state in-charge Sanjay Singh and convener Sucha Singh Chottepur in Chandigarh.
While addressing the mediapersons, Bir said that joining AAP is the move in his contest against the administrative or systemic flaws in the country.
He said that he had started his fight against the system before he joined his first government job as a clerk in 1968.
Bir, who had sought premature retirement in April 2010 after developing a rift with the ruling Badal family in Punjab over the issue of parking of private buses, said that he has joined AAP and would like to work for the party in its campaign for reforming the administrative structure of the country.
He claimed that after retirement he was approached by Congress and even BJP to join politics, but having experienced of working under the regimes of both the parties, he opted to stay away.
Appreciating Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Bir said that he had made up his mind to join AAP as this party and its leaders are striving to bring novelty in the system.
He said that he had not asked for any role in the party and would like to assist party with his administrative experience and would like to continue his fight against the malpractices of the administrative system of the country under which an honest person had to be the victim.
Bir, who had been a member of the personal staff of lt. Giani Zail Singh, when the latter was the Punjab Chief Minister, in 1974, was nominated into the Punjab civil services in 1976, and 16 years later, elevated to IAS cadre.