NEW DELHI: Amid an ongoing tussle on a host of issues between Raj Niwas and the elected government of Delhi, the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Vinai Kumar Saxena on Thursday invited Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for a meeting on Friday.
The LG’s invitation assumes significance as his office and the Aam Aadmi Party dispensation have been at loggerheads over multiple issues, a Delhi government proposal to send its teachers for training in Finland being the latest bone of contention.
The L-G and the chief minister have their weekly meetings on Friday. The scheduled meetings were disrupted with tensions rising between the LG office and the AAP dispensation.Saxena also invited 10 MLAs, cabinet ministers and officials to accompany Kejriwal to the meeting.
“L-G VK Saxena has asked CM Arvind Kejriwal to come and see him with his cabinet ministers and any of the 10 MLAs on Friday at 4 pm at Raj Niwas,” an official source from the L-G secretariat said.
Responding to the invitation, Kejriwal expressed his inability to join Saxena in the meeting due to his planned visit to Punjab where he will inaugurate 400 Mohalla Clinics on Friday. The CM also requested another date.
“Thank you L-G Sahab. I am going to Punjab tomorrow (Friday). We are requesting Hon’ble L-G for some other time,” statement issued from the CM Office read.On January 16, Kejriwal and his party MLAs marched from the Vidhan Sabha to Raj Niwas to meet Saxena over the teachers’ training proposal.
The Chief Minister returned after waiting for nearly an hour, claiming that the L-G refused to meet him, his deputy Manish Sisodia and AAP MLAs.Saxena denied the charge in a letter he wrote to Kejriwal days later, saying the Chief Minister insisted for a meeting that would be attended by all his MLAs, and that it was not possible at a short notice.
Kejriwal, replying to the L-G letter, had suggested a fresh proposal for a meeting between the two sides. However, AAP leaders had later claimed that Saxena refused to meet the Chief Minister and AAP MLAs.
The relations between the two sides have worsened in recent weeks with the AAP dispensation hitting out at the L-G over his decisions to nominate the presiding officer and aldermen to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi House, Haj Committee members and the row over the proposal to send Delhi government teachers to Finland for training.
Kejriwal had questioned the LG’s role as the “administrator” of Delhi and accused him of acting like a “headmaster” to intervene in the domain of the elected government.Saxena hit back, saying that the chief minister was making “misleading and derogatory” remarks against him and asserting he was working like a “conscientious voice of people” and not as a headmaster.
At the Delhi government’s Republic Day function on Wednesday, Kejriwal had raised the issue of alleged “harassment” faced by states and UTs at the hands of the Centre-appointed governors and L-Gs.
CM, L-G at loggerheads over multiple issues
The LG’s invitation assumes significance as his office and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) dispensation have been at loggerheads over multiple issues, a Delhi government proposal to send its teachers for training in Finland being the latest bone of contention.The L-G and the chief minister have their weekly meetings on Friday. The scheduled meetings were disrupted with tensions rising between the L-G office and the AAP dispensation. Saxena also invited 10 MLAs, cabinet ministers and officials to accompany Kejriwal to the meeting.