Delhi Chief Minister designate Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday announced his team of Ministers who will take over the functioning of Government in the national Capital tentatively from December 26. AAP’s second in-command and Kejriwal’s trusted lieutenant Manish Sisodia figures along with five others to be inducted into Kejriwal’s Ministry. The development comes a day after the AAP staked claim for formation of a Government in Delhi.
However, soon after the announcement of names, dissidence within the party cropped up. AAP MlA from laxmi Nagar constituency Vinod Kumar Binny left the meeting midway protesting against his exclusion from the Cabinet and also threatened a big expose on senior leaders on Wednesday.
In a late night development, Binny, along with four MlAs, met Samajwadi Party leader Kundan Singh Rana based in Noida at the latter’s residence in Sec-71. What prompted Binny to meet Rana is still not known. However, sources said the laxmi Nagar MlA may quit the AAP as he is not pleased over his exclusion from the Cabinet. Rana is considered to be closed with SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Ram Gopal Yadav. Meanwhile, the AAP asked all its MlAs to assemble at party headquarters immediately so that rebels can be identified late in the evening. However, Sisodia denied the report.
The other five, who are slated to be sworn in as Ministers, are Rakhi Birla, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Somnath Bharti, Girish Soni and Satyendra Jain.
Amid political developments, Kejriwal had the first taste of being the head of a Government. Along with the uphill task of deciding on Ministers for his Government, he remained busy throughout the day meeting senior bureaucrats from Delhi and his hometown of Ghaziabad.
Deliberations on the probable names began from as early as nine in the morning with Manish Sisodia visiting him. Following this, MlAs from Mangolpuri and the posh Malviya Nagar constituency, Rakhi Birla and Somnath Bharti, reached his place. An IIT graduate and a lawyer by profession, Somnath who was seen with his mother there, said, “I will be happy with whatever portfolio party leaders assign me. But our first task is to fulfil the promises we made in our manifesto. We have already made a committee on ‘Mohalla Sabha’ to revive the dying culture.”
Interestingly, at the age of 26, Birla will not only be the only woman member in Kejriwal’s Cabinet but also be the youngest Minister. Sisodia and Somnath who were with Kejriwal for over three hours, came out of his residence only in the afternoon. While Saurabh Bhardwaj is an MlA from Greater Kailash seat, Girish Soni won from SC reserved seat of Madipur. Satyender Jain, on the other hand, won from Shakur Basti seat.
Having the first tryst as the Delhi CM, Kejriwal was visited by Delhi Chief Secretary DM Spolia in the morning. In a situation when the AAP has made the promise of reducing power tariffs by 50 per cent within two months of coming to power, sources close to Kejriwal said that Spolia apprised the AAP chief of the financial health of Discoms in Delhi. He also gave a status report of the various departments in the Delhi Government and handed Kejriwal the list of officers heading them. Kejriwal also informed him that neither he nor any of his Ministers would move to the bungalows provided by the Government and insisted that they are given smaller Government flats. The Delhi Government Ministers are entitled to five-bedroom, Type-8 Government houses.
A 1989-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre, Ranjender Kumar also visited Kejriwal along with the Chief Secretary. He, in all likelihood, will become the Principal Secretary of the Delhi Government.
Meanwhile, the activist-turned-Chief Minister was also visited by Ghaziabad’s Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Dharmendra Yadav, who brought a letter to accept police protection for his residence and for all the other 27 MlAs, which Kejriwal refused. “We have received letter from Delhi Police Security branch regarding security of his residence at Kaushambi. I met him today but he refused to take any security cover,” Yadav said. On Monday, Kejriwal had refused to accept the ‘Z’ security cover, which he is entitled to as the Chief Minister of Delhi, by Delhi Police.
The decision on the names was taken after hours of brainstorming session among the political affairs committee (PAC) members of the party. The PAC is the primary body of the AAP which takes all the political decisions of the party. It has nine members -- Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Yogendra Yadav, Kumar Vishwas, Pankaj Gupta, Sanju, Naveen Jaihind, Ilyas Azmi and Gopal Rai. Sources in the party said that the PAC had met on Monday night as well to discuss on the issue.
The next tedious task in the hands of the party leaders is to appoint Ministries to the declared Ministers. Kejriwal again called for a meeting at 5 pm on Tuesday for the purpose. The meeting, which was attended by top leaders of the party, went on till late evening. The Ministers, along with Kejriwal, are expected to take oath at Ramlila Maidan on Thursday. While the officials of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation are busy preparing for the unique public ceremony, however, until Tuesday, the party received no confirmation on the date from lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung. The l-G, until Tuesday, did not receive any communication from the President’s office, sources said.