Contradicting the position taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party umpteen times since 1992, often with an eye upon votes, in favour of full Statehood for Delhi, the Central Government led by it has pushed Delhi to the brink. The BJP is relentlessly pursuing its bid to curtail powers of Delhi Government. The Union Home Ministry has moved the Supreme Court after Delhi High Court had come to the rescue of the City Government. The Home Ministry’s move goes totally against BJP’s stand in the past.

The core issue behind the present Constitutional crisis dogging the national Capital is truncated powers given to the State Government led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Obviously, what BJP thought could well suit it is no longer so since a rival party has taken power in Delhi; and, thus, a volte face.

The bone of contention has been the control of services that includes transfers and postings of officials that Centre wants to keep via the Raj Niwas. Add this with public order and police and land or real estate to complete the list of crucial subjects under Central control. These are under the exclusive control of Union Government that exercises powers over them through the office of the Lieutenant Governor.

Earlier, the Delhi High Court termed a Ministry of Home Affairs’ notification giving absolute powers to the Lieutenant Governor vis-à-vis services as ‘suspect’, putting a question mark over the Constitutional validity of the notification. The row looked into by the High Court related to Anti-Corruption Branch or ACB where police have the main role. Kejriwal has been contending his Government’s right to refer cases to ACB and prosecute the culprits through the aegis of the ACB. He held a two-day long special session of Delhi Assembly which ended up on Wednesday with the rejection of the notification.

The Centre did not like Kejriwal’s move to take to task the Central Government employees and other higher ups like those from private power distributing companies through the ACB. The Union Government also issued the notification on May 21^st to further arm Lieutenant Governor vis-à-vis the subjects under the control of Ministry of Home Affairs through him.

This row somehow coincided with a bureaucratic muddle that was already on in the wake of a ten-day leave taken by Delhi Government’s Chief Secretary KK Sharma. His replacement during the leave Shakuntala Gamlin was appointed directly at the behest of Najeeb Jung. Soon Kejriwal cried foul alleging that Gamlin has been having ‘close ties’ with Discoms entrusted with electricity distribution in the Capital and, thus, she was being hoisted to the top bureaucratic assignment through backdoor and can well favour the Discoms.

Such an allegation drew the ire of the IAS lobby against the Chief Minister though the Centre has been no less culpable in aggravating the row that followed the posting of Gamlin as acting Chief Secretary through the brief absence of her boss.

Indeed, the ‘Yes-Secretary-and-No-Minister’ approach of the Centre carried out through Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung in case of Delhi has pushed the city of babudom and control hub of the country to unprecedented depths.

Soon after Gamlin’s brief spell as Acting Chief Secretary got over the Chief Minister appointed his secretary Rajendra Kumar as Secretary Services. Among the transfers that Kumar has made is that of his predecessor Aninda Majumdar who had earlier inked the order that had brought Gamlin to replace Sharma during his leave. Majumdar has been moved to Delhi Finance Corporation as its Chairman and Managing Director. Three other officials were transferred on Wednesday along with him. And as many as nine, including two IAS officers, were transferred (See the facsimile of the order) on May 25 by Kumar as he has turned out to be the Man Friday of the Chief Minister through the current crisis.

Strangely, the Centre that often takes pride for having brought good governance and empowerment of States remained unmoved by the noises made by Kejriwal through the days much before these abrupt transfers. In this sorry state of affairs it would be worth looking at the way appointments of top bureaucrats have been made or unmade in Delhi not only by the city but also the Central Government through the past one year or so.

Earlier this year, Sujatha Singh had to quit about eight months before her retirement was scheduled. She made the way for the present Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar. Similarly, Jaishankar’s counterpart in the Union Home Ministry LC Goyal came after the Anil Goswami was removed unceremoniously. This happened amid charges of unjustified interference by Goswami in the functioning of CBI.

Besides this, the Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi was brought in last year by transferring his predecessor Arvind Mayaram to a far less conspicuous and belittling post of Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism. Not only this, an ordinance has to be brought in soon after the swearing in of Narendra Modi Government to appoint Nripendra Misra as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. Later, this got the nod of Parliament and the Telecom Regulatory Authority Act was amended. Misra has been the top boss of the Telecom Authority and, thus, was not supposed to take any future Government position as per the old and original version of the Act.

Unlike these quick-fix postings, the PMO was equally prompt to forestall moves by some of the NDA ministers to appoint private secretaries of their choice. The reason for this being the incumbents have been private secretaries in the previous UPA regime to important ministers; and their appointments in crucial ministries again could mar the confidentiality their task warrants. Alok Singh could not come to Union Home Ministry despite being the choice of Rajnath Singh as the IPS officer has earlier been private secretary to Salman Khurshid.  Similarly, Ministers of State Kiran Rijiju and VK Singh could not get Abhinav Kumar and Rajesh as the two have been private secretaries to Shashi Tharoor and Chandresh Kumari Katoch respectively in the previous UPA Government.

So everything has not been quite fine when the Kejriwal-Jung kerfuffle erupted, greatly rattling the Delhi and countrywide IAS associations. The ‘conducive atmosphere’ that former Chief Secretary of Delhi Omesh Sehgal called for the functioning of officers was indeed mauled but not by Kejriwal alone. The officials associations somehow ignored other players in this unsavoury game.

Come-and-gone Government secretaries and other officials as per the convenience of political bosses is indeed a serious issue. This is more so since the high-point of the present crisis turned out to be the locking of the office of the Principal Secretary (Services) Aninda Majumdar to bar his entry. This was reportedly resorted to at the orders of Kejriwal since Majumdar kowtowed Jung’s fiat to appoint Gamlin as officiating Chief Secretary.

Omesh Sehgal and his colleagues point to Kejriwal mainly because of this incident through their call for conducive atmosphere for officers’ proper and suitable functioning. Generally, brusque and brash behavior on the part of Delhi Chief Minister may well be making him unpopular among a section of Babus. Yet, the fact is self-righteous and hubristic ways of top brass of Governments and officials go beyond Delhi Government to the extent of getting rampant in so many secretariats that see daily bureaucratic tussles. This includes North and South blocks. The question that stares hard in the face of all is: who can stop elected executive heads from becoming virtual CEOs looking for henchmen only to carry out their task; and the kind of toll that their whims and tinkering may take upon bureaucracy?