As the Aam Aadmi Part’s(AAP) protest entered its eighth day on Monday, the Delhi High Court pulled up the Arvind Kejriwal-led government and asked who had authorised the sit-in protest by the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues — Manish Sisodia, Gopal Rai and Satyender Jain — at the Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal’s office. “You are sitting inside the LG’s office. If it’s a strike, it has to be outside the office,” the court said.
Kejriwal, on the other hand, in a fresh appeal, reassured IAS officers that he would ensure their “safety and security” while urging them to call off their “strike.” The party on Sunday had planned a march till the Prime Minister’s house in Lok Kalyan Marg on Sunday but was stopped near the Parliament Street police station.
After Mamata Banerjee, N Chandrababu Naidu, Pinarayi Vijayan and HD Kumaraswamy, Kejriwal received support from MK Stalin, Omar Abdullah and Prakash Raj among others. CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury briefly joined the protesters at the Mandi House circle.
Kejriwal and company have been staging a sit-in protest at LG’s office since last Monday over the bureaucratic impasse in the National Capital due to the IAS officers “strike.” Satyendar Jain, who along with Manish Sisodia was on an indefinite hunger strike, was rushed to hospital on Sunday after his health deteriorated.
