Centre Cancels Posts of Nine AAP Advisors in Delhi Cabinet

The Union Home Ministry had said that these posts were “not sanctioned”.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

(Photo: PTI)

The Union Home Ministry has cancelled nine posts of advisors held by AAP members in the Delhi cabinet, sparking a fresh face-off between the Centre and the ruling party in the capital.

The General Administration Department (GAD) of the Delhi government, citing a Home Ministry letter dated 10 April, said on Tuesday that the appointment of advisors and consultants in various ministries stands cancelled.

"The appointees officiating are not in the list of posts approved for the ministers and Chief Minister of Delhi. No prior approval of the Central government has been taken for creation of said posts on which these person have been appointed," the GAD said.

"Therefore, creation of posts by Delhi cabinet for accommodating these appointees is void ab-initio, being done by an agency not competent under the law to do so. Since creation of these posts and subsequent appointments on these posts are not valid, all previous orders regarding creation of these posts and appointments made against them are hereby cancelled."

The nine advisers include Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Atishi Marlena, Raghav Chaddha and Arunoday Prakash – all advisers to Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Manish Sisodia.

The government has also cancelled the posts held by Amar Deep Tiwari as media adviser to Law Minister, Prashant Saxena and Samir Malhotra as consultants to Power Minister, Rajat Tiwari as aide-de-camp in office of Minister of Power, Ram Kumar Jha as adviser (logistics) in the office of Minister, GAD and Dinkar Adeeb as OSD to Home Minister.

The cancellation sparked an angry reaction from the AAP that dubbed this move by the Centre as a "diversionary tactic" of the BJP to divert attention from recent incidents of rapes and cash crunch in the country.

BJP Can Appoint Babas As Advisors, But Cancel Our Educated Advisors: Manish Sisodia

In a strong reaction, Deputy Education Minister said the latest move intended to target his advisor Atishi Marlena, who played a pivotal role in improving the education system in Delhi.

Speaking with The Quint, Atishi Marlena said, "The Centre is clearly trying to paralyse the work being done by the Delhi government in the department of education."

The suspension of Atishi Marlena has evoked a lot of outrage from the members of AAP.

Sisodia goes onto accuse BJP of appointing “babas as advisors for huge salaries, to spread hate and violence.”

Fact checking the government’s move, Sisodia said, “ Four of the nine have already left long time back. One of them – Raghav Chadha – worked with me in 2016 for two and half months only at Re 1/pm salary (ie total Re 2.5/-).

AAP’s Raghav Chadha accused the MHA order of being a tactic to divert attention from rapes and cash crunch that has riled up the BJP government in the past few days.

(With inputs from IANS.)

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