Najafgarh Zone Chairman Malik to be booked for locking IAS officer
Najafgarh Zone Chairman Malik to be booked for locking IAS officer
Rift between BJP’s MCD Councillors and Delhi govt. officials not new
New Delhi, Feb. 8 (Delhi Crown): A senior official at the office of MCD Deputy Commissioner Bhupesh Chaudhary, posted in Najafgarh, on Tuesday told THE DELHI CROWN that the Najafgarh Zone MCD Chairman Satyapal Malik will be soon “booked” for locking Chaudhary inside his office on February 4.
The official said – “He (Chaudhary) is a government servant. Any problems could have been raised in meetings, but locking him up is defying the government.”
Satyapal Malik belongs to the BJP and is a sitting MCD Councillor from the Roshanpura ward. He had been raising issues of several problems in Roshanpura ward, such as liquor shops violating guidelines and waterlogging in some areas, but claimed “Chaudhary refused to cooperate” with him.
Claiming that South MCD Deputy Commissioner Bhupesh Chaudhary was not paying heed to problems in his ward, Malik had locked the IAS officer in his office on February 4.
“Whenever we asked him to visit to any area, he kept putting it off saying he has meetings to attend. I thought it is best to not disturb him, so I locked him in his office,” said Malik.
Chaudhary, a 2014 batch IAS officer of the AGMUT Cadre, was appointed to the Najafgarh Zone as MCD Commissioner in January 2021.
Meanwhile, the matter (of locking up IAS officer) was raised in the SDMC House meeting on Monday, during which Malik told SDMC Mayor Mukesh Suryan that action should be taken against the Deputy Commissioner.
“If action is not taken against him, I will resign from post of councillor,” he said. Assuring Malik that action would be taken soon, Suryan said the Zone Chairperson’s (Malik) problem is genuine. “We don’t need such bureaucrats who don’t cooperate with leaders or don’t go for inspections,” added Suryan.
The confrontation between the BJP-led MCDs and the Delhi Government officials is not new. In 2018, a special House session was called by then Mayor Bipin Bihari Singh seeking impeachment of then commissioner Ranveer Singh for his alleged refusal to take steps to end sanitation workers’ strike.
