New Delhi, April 18: A day after his appointment as Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's adviser was cancelled, Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha on Wednesday said he had returned Rs 2.50 he received as "salary" for 75 days he was on the post in 2016.
The Delhi government's General Administration Department (GAD), citing a Home Ministry letter dated April 10, on Tuesday cancelled the appointment of nine advisers and consultants in various departments, including that of Chadha as Adviser (finance).
In a letter to the Ministry, Chadha said that he was appointed to the post from January 15 to March 31 in 2016 to assist Sisodia in the preparation of the 2016-17 Budget.
"...I accept my retrospective sacking from the post I held for 75 days two years ago," he said in the letter, tagging along a draft for Rs 2.50.
He criticised Delhi bureaucrats, claiming that they were working "hand in glove" with the Bharatiya Janata Party by choice or under duress and were "uncooperative" over the Delhi government's reforms, and thus the role of advisers was "ever more important".
The nine advisers whose appointments were cancelled are Amardeep Tiwari (Media adviser to the Law Minister), Arunoday Prakash (Media Adviser to Deputy CM), Atishi Marlena (Media Adviser to Deputy CM), Dinkar Adib (OSD to Minister Satyender Jain), Ram Kumar Jha (Adviser, logistics, to Sisodia), Samir Malhotra (consultant, Satyender Jain), Prashant Saxena and Rajat Tiwari (Aide de Camps to Power Minister).
"I too was one of these young foolhardy individuals who thought they brought value to the table...," Chadha wrote in the letter.
Taking a dig at BJP leaders Sambit Patra and Shazia Ilmi over their appointment as Directors in the Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd and Engineers India Ltd respectively, the AAP leader derisively questioned if he would have been better placed at a "plump position" in public sector undertaking with "considerable pecuniary benefits".
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Punjab: Two shooters, 5 others arrested in AAP sarpanch murder case
Chandigarh (PTI): Punjab Police on Monday said it has arrested two shooters and five other accused in the murder case of an AAP sarpanch who was killed at a wedding in Amritsar on January 4.
The two shooters -- Sukhraj Singh alias Ganga from Patti in Tarn Taran district and Karamjit Singh from Gurdaspur district -- were arrested from Raipur in Chhattisgarh on Sunday in coordination with the local police and central agencies, Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav told reporters here.
The two were produced before a court in Raipur and taken into custody after obtaining transit remand. They are being brought to Amritsar for further investigation, he said.
The other five arrested accused, who were part of the support and logistical module, were arrested from Punjab, the DGP said.
Jharmal Singh, sarpanch of Valthoa village in Tarn Taran, was shot dead at the wedding at point-blank range.
CCTV footage showed the two shooters walking into the wedding venue, one of them pulling out a gun and firing at Singh's head before fleeing the spot. Singh was rushed to a hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries.
Soon after the incident, the AAP government drew flak from the opposition over alleged deteriorating law and order in Punjab, with the BJP demanding Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's resignation.
