A staffing shortage at Delhi Women’s Commission prompts the lieutenant governor to fire 223 workers

Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, VK Saxena, has fired 223 members of the women commission in the city as part of a massive purge. According to allegations, AAP MP Swati Maliwal broke rules when she nominated these people while serving as the Delhi Commission for Women’s Chair.

Maliwal fiercely objected to the Lieutenant Governor’s order, claiming that if all contract workers were fired, the women’s commission would not continue to exist. She said that there are now ninety people working for the panel; eight of them are employed by the government and the other eighty are on three-month contracts. She expressed her annoyance and questioned the need for such measures while highlighting the commitment and work made by the organization. She boldly challenged the Lieutenant Governor to put her in jail, promising to stop the women’s commission from closing and stressing how crucial it is to defend women’s rights.

The Delhi Commission for Women Act is cited in the Lieutenant Governor’s office order, which emphasizes that the commission is only authorized to hire 40 people and that the establishment of 223 additional roles was not authorized by law. In addition, the ruling argues that by employing workers under contract, the commission overreached its jurisdiction. The choice is based on an investigation report that was sent to the previous lieutenant governor in February 2017.

In addition, the order claims that critical positions were appointed without appropriate review and that the commission was advised not to take on new debt without the finance department’s consent.

Prior to her nine years as the chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women, Maliwal was an AAP MP in the Rajya Sabha. Notably, there is currently no one holding the chairman role for the commission. The order emphasizes how Maliwal was often told to get the finance department’s consent before making these hires.

Tensions between the governing AAP and the Lieutenant Governor’s office are heightened by this crackdown, which is indicative of larger disagreements about national capital administration. Because of the influence of the governing BJP, the AAP has continuously accused the Lieutenant Governor’s office of impeding its governance attempts.

This event adds to the political unrest that has been going on since Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was imprisoned for suspected violations of the capital’s now-defunct liquor policy.