My biggest regret is losing ACB, can’t take action against corrupt anymore, says Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has alleged that his officials are being summoned and intimidated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). In an exclusive interview with The Times of India on the occasion of his government completing a year this weekend, Kejriwal said 77 officials, both from IAS and DANICS, besides other staff, have been called so far in a patently illegal manner. There is no case and no legal summons.He said this process started after his principal secretary, Rajendra Kumar, was raided on December 15 last year. Kejriwal said this campaign by the Centre was hampering his government’s work. He said his government’s first year in power has been tumultous but fruitful. However, constant interference by Centre and the state of bureaucracy upset him.Q. You have been asked to do yoga regularly and de-stress. How are you going about doing this and what changes have you made in your routine? Do you think one year in government has affected your health adversely?Yes, I am doing Yoga, Pranayam and Kriya and walking for over two hours daily for the past two days. I hope this routine continues. I don’t think one year of working in the government has impacted my health. Of course, there is a little stress…stress levels are high, and that leads to increase in diabetes (laughs), that’s all.Q. Whether the provocation comes from the Centre, or you up the ante, doesn’t this permanent state of conflict, a feeling of being under siege, affect your work? It does…in two, three ways. One is that if they had not tried to obstruct the government in this manner on a day-to-day basis, we would have achieved much more. I can vouch for it that in the past one year, the kind of work we have done in government, no other party has done before this. If we had not been obstructed and instead got cooperation from the Centre, then we would have been able to do 10 times more work. Secondly, this has had a serious impact on the bureaucracy. They are completely sandwiched. The Delhi government, the cabinet, tells them to do one thing and the Centre threatens them, asking them not to do it. So, they do not know what to do. A number of them are good officers.Q. There is a view that the unrest brewing within the bureaucracy has a lot to do with the style of functioning of the government as far as interpretation of the rules is concerned. The recent suspension of two special secretaries in the home department is a case in point. How do you propose to deal with this unrest?What unrest? We have to take action. If an officer does something wrong, we will take action. The high court asked us to increase the salaries of public prosecutors. Accordingly, the cabinet took a decision to increase the salaries. The officer concerned was supposed to notify it but he wrote on the file that he won’t. So, we took action and suspended him. The rules provide for action for non-compliance of a cabinet decision. If an officer will not follow the decision of the cabinet, he will obviously be punished. How dare officers not follow the cabinet’s decision!Q. From seeking good, honest and hardworking bureaucrats to saying that we can run the government without them – how did this happen within a year? You even called them the ‘B team of BJP’. Aren’t the bureaucrats becoming collateral damage in your fight with the Centre?In the history of India, the IAS Officers’ Association has never gone on strike. Two DANICS officers were suspended for doing something wrong. The odd-even restrictions were to be implemented from