lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung has rejected Chief Secretary KK Sharma and Health Minister Satyendra Jain's OSD DC Goyal's request to accompany Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for Mother Teresa's canonization ceremony on September 4 in Vatican City.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs have, however, granted permission to Kejriwal, his OSD Bibhav Kumar and Jain to attend the ceremony, while the l-G is said to have rejected the request of Sharma and Goyal on the ground that the two were not required to attend any official meeting in connection with the Delhi Government.
A senior bureaucrat said that earlier all foreign tours undertaken by the State Government Ministers and legislators had to be cleared by the Ministry of External Affairs. "These are political clearances that have to be taken from the Centre. Now, the l-G has the power to clear these files."
Sources said that about a dozen AAP leaders will accompany Kejriwal to Vatican City on their personal expenses.
Among the leaders expected to accompany the CM are party spokesperson Raghav Chaddha, Delhi Dialogue vice-chairman Ashish Khaitan and poet-turned politician Kumar Vishwas.
This Vatican trip is going to be Kejriwal's first foreign visit after he assumed charge of the Delhi Government. He will also be joined by his West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee.
Kejriwal, along with two others, will be leaving Delhi on Friday and will be back on August 5. He had earlier accepted the invitation of the Missionaries of Charity, with which he had worked for two months in 1992 before joining the Indian Revenue Service.
During his Goa tour, Kejriwal had declared his party will win 35 of the 40 seats in Goa.
It may be recalled that Kejriwal was trolled online for adorning "copel" during his recent visit to a fishing community in Goa.
According to media reports, AAP leader in Goa, Custodio D'souza had said that since it was the ongoing Sao Joao festival, they had decided to adorn Kejriwal with "copel", which consisted of variety of fresh flowers picked during the season.