The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday slammed Delhi LG VK Saxena's "open letter" to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, calling Saxena's move a "shameless political manoeuvre". Saxena on Tuesday wrote an "open letter" to Kejriwal, who is in Enforcement Directorate custody in the Delhi liquor policy case. Saxena wrote that Delhi Minister Atishi had "chosen to use the unfortunate death of a woman in East Delhi for narrow and partisan political goals".
Atishi had earlier written to VK Saxena, urging him to take action against the Delhi Jal Board CEO for his alleged failure to discharge his duties responsibly that led to the death of a woman in the Farsh Bazar area in northeast Delhi. The woman was killed when a quarrel with her neighbour over drawing water from a common tap escalated. Atishi further accused the Delhi LG of abetting the stoppage of work of the Delhi Jal Board. She also alleged that Saxena was encouraging officers to stop work.
Reacting to Atishi's accusations, Saxena wrote to Kejriwal: "Your minister's hasty missive to me is an admission of these failures and defaults of performance of your government and amount to facile attempts at shrugging responsibility off, a complex problem." He acknowledged the woman's death as "unfortunate" and said that this was among several such cases in Delhi. According to Saxena, many such incidents due to scarcity of water had occurred in the past and blamed the Delhi government for it.
AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj on Monday slammed the LG's letter and said, "I have never seen a worse and narrow-minded person like him in the country's politics. This was a terrible, shameless letter. The Governor has the complete power to take action against the officers who are not working, whether they are from the health department, flood department, or the Jal Board. He is not using that power, which means he is encouraging those officers not to work and trouble the people of Delhi."