Chandigarh, February 8
Punjab Congress today criticised the Aam Aadmi Party government’s decision to place under suspension two senior IAS officers without assigning any reasons. In a statement, Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said that it is obvious that the two officers have apparently refused some illegal diktats of the AAP government.
“It is good that the officers have started standing up to the illegal diktats of the AAP government which has always tried to misuse bureaucracy and police”, he said and added that the AAP should have assigned the reasons for the suspension of the officers, which it did not as apparently there were none which would warrant such punitive action.
Warring noted that the AAP was either trying to make the officers scapegoats for its own incompetence and failures or was trying to arm twist and intimidate them and force them to do illegal things in the last year of its tenure when its countdown has already begun.
The PCC president pointed out that it is not for the first time that the AAP has used coercive and punitive measures against its own officers as it did this in the last also only to withdraw these later.
“This reflects very badly and quite poorly on the competence of the government that it has to resort to intimidation of officers with suspension just because they apparently refused to carry out illegal orders”, he remarked.
Sounding a note of caution, Warring urged the officers that they must not get intimidated as the AAP government will desperately try to use them to do so many illegal and unacceptable things. “Stand up your ground”, he urged the bureaucracy while expressing his complete solidarity against any victimisation or intimidation.
Warring said that the two officers were apparently placed under suspension to convey a message to others also that they either fall in line or face the consequences. But, he added, the AAP is grossly mistaken as these intimidating tactics will only boomerang on the government, which in any case is on its way out.
