Former health secretary in Manmohan Singh government bats for Arvind Kejriwal

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A Former health secretary in the Congress-led Manmohan Singh government, K Sujatha Rao, has slammed the striking IAS civil servants in the Delhi government. The action by the civil servants has led to an unprecedented administrative crisis in Delhi as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal continues to hold his sit-in protest against LG Anil Baijal at his office-cum-residence.

Rao, who retired as the Union Health Secretary in 2010, tweeted, “Unbelievable that IAS officers can go on “strike”. They have constitutional responsibilities. How can they be so irresponsible? And the LG just looks the other way? Quite a bad precedent and yet another blow to the so-called iron frame holding the country together.”

Her statement has come as a setback to the claims made by the BJP that there was no strike by the civil servants in Delhi.

There have also been also plenty of criticism for the Congress, whose role has for intense scrutiny given in ,light of the much-talked-about unity of the opposition parties ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Journalist Tony Joseph asked, “There is no need for Congress to support AAP. But there is a need for it to oppose the Centre on its blatantly anti-democratic actions. These two things are not necessarily contradictory. But it requires deft articulation.”

Former diplomat KC Singh tweeted, “My advice of three days ago obviously had no effect in @RahulGandhi. Glad 4 CMs now following up on what @YashwantSinha & I did two days ago by attempting to go see @ArvindKejriwal or LG & were turned away. Cong seems like BJP B Team tonite.”

Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde tagged Congress President Rahul Gandhi and wrote, “Many people like me will vote strongest anti-BJP candidate at constituency level. If Congress in Delhi & AAP do not hang together now, they will hang separately later. Especially when rest of opposition like Mamta & NCBN here, Congress absence will hurt it later @RahulGandhi.”

This assumed significance given that Kumaraswamy is being supported by the Congress in Karnataka and Puducherry CM N Narayanasamy had last week supported Kejriwal’s decisionto stage a sit-in. Like Kejriwal, Narayanasamy too has been facing the alleged intervention by LG Kiran Bedi in Puducherry.

Kejriwal, along with Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Cabinet ministers Satyendar Jain and Gopal Rai, is camping at Raj Niwas since Monday demanding a direction to the IAS officers working in the Delhi administration to end their undeclared strike, among other demands.

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