NEW DELHI: While Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal remains in jail, a civic issue, water scarcity, is turning into a political slugfest.
On Tuesday, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena wrote an open letter to Kejriwal following water minister Atishi’s note to him seeking suspension of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) chief executive officer over a murder triggered by a water dispute a few days ago.
The L-G said that since he cannot address the letter to Kejriwal as he is lodged in Tihar, he is issuing an open letter where the former alleged AAP ministers of becoming “habitual” in blaming officers for their own faults.
Saxena further accused Atishi of using a death for “narrow and partisan political goals.”
On Sunday, Atishi had asked the L-G to suspend the official following the murder of a woman in Shahdara after an alleged fight with neighbours over filling up water from a common tap.”
Having underlined the inadequate supply of water as the cause behind the incident, Atishi has ironically indicted her own government of more than nine years. “Her note indeed is a prima facie admission of guilt, inaction and inefficiency over the past almost 10 years,” Saxena wrote.
“It has almost now become habitual on part of your ministers to blame officers for their own failures, be it in the field of health, hospitals, sanitation, education or water supply,” the L-G wrote.