Delhi Chief Secretary KK Sharma’s terse communication to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia about the conduct of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s trusted lieutenant and principal secretary Rajendra Kumar has not gone down well with AAP leadership.
A senior bureaucrat said that after Sharma’s note, the Government stopped routing about 70 to 80 per cent of files through the Chief Secretary office. Even some of the key decisions were taken either at the level of the Ministers or their respective secretaries. Both the CM and his deputy even stopped calling the CS for several important meetings. The only high-level meeting which the CS had been attending is the one held every week of the heads of departments by Sisodia. The weekly meeting of the HoDs was earlier chaired by the CS himself.
The Pioneer investigation revealed that the Chief Secretary had expressed his displeasure over Kumar’s functioning as Secretary (Home) in the Delhi Government despite the directions of the Home Ministry. He is said to have comm-unicated his displeasure to deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia through a note on June 30 in which he had categorically stated that the conduct of Kumar was not proper during the controversy related to his appointed as secretary (Home), in which he was at loggerheads with then Principal Secretary (Home) Dharampal.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has even issued notice to Kumar for not following the directions of the Ministry pertaining to Home Secretary of Delhi.
The AAP Government may be upset with the 1983-batch IAS officer because he didn’t acknowledge party-pick Rajender Kumar as Home Secretary and reinstated Dharampal — a Union Home Ministry appointee — during a pitched battle between the Chief Minister and lieutenant Governor in June.
This was the first occasion when two senior officers had been heading the Home Department. The matter was finally settled with Union Home Ministry agreeing to Kejriwal’s proposal to appoint Principal Secretary (Finance) SN Sahai as the head of the Home Department.
But things did not stop here. Sharma finally had to put his dissent in writing to Sisodia explain about the conduct of Kumar. It is learnt that Sharma’s communication related to Kumar did not go well with the top AAP leadership, who in return, started sidelining the latter. The Chief Secretary’s dissent note about Kumar has led to appointment of SN Sahai as Principal Secretary (Home). Sahai is also holding the charge of Finance.