New Delhi: Seeking to escalate its ongoing row with the Centre, the Aam Aadmi Party government on Thursday released full-page advertisements in leading newspapers here and slammed the 'Government of India'.
In the advertisements, the Delhi government accused the Narendra Modi-led Central government of stalling development work in the national capital.
"The Government of India has suddenly transferred senior officers in-charge of important departments outside Delhi, without consulting the elected Government of Delhi," the advertisements that carried the picture of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.
Labelled "Why the people of Delhi should suffer?" the ads said the Centre's move to transfer senior bureaucrats has led to stalling of development work on modernisation of schools, installation of CCTV cameras, development of roads, drainage and sewerage in unauthorised colonies, among others.
The ads said there are 309 sanctioned posts of DANICS (Delhi, Andaman Nicobar Island Civil Services) officers for Delhi but the Centre has so far provided only 165 officers.
"If they do not provide us officers to work with, we will get experts from amongst you since there is no dearth of experts in Delhi," the ads said.
The AAP government in Delhi and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre have been at loggerheads and the former has accused the latter of interfering in the city government`s functioning and of using central agencies like the CBI for intimidating it.
On Tuesday, following the arrest of a senior bureaucrat on charges of corruption, Sisodia had accused the Centre of wanting to run a parallel government in Delhi, and termed it a conspiracy.
"It is the central government`s responsibility to provide officers to Delhi government. But it has failed to do so because it wants to weaken the Delhi government by taking away our officers," the Deputy CM had alleged.
