Three days after Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikhit put the blame for an unsafe capital on the union home ministry-controlled Delhi Police, union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Monday turned the tables on her.
The central prison of Tihar where Ram Singh purportedly committed suicide comes under the administrative control of the Delhi government and while both its top officials — DG prisons and IG prisons — are UT cadre IPS officers appointed by the union home ministry, they are answerable to the Delhi chief minister through the home secretary of the Delhi government.
When asked about Sheila Diskhit's oft-repeated contention that the Delhi government can do little to improve an unsafe Delhi as the Delhi Police is not under its control, Shinde said, “I am ready to give whatever the Delhi government wants... She (Sheila Dikshit) is a serious leader and I'll do whatever she asks for... but let her officials write to us that she wants the Delhi Police under the Delhi government. I have not received any such letter till date”
Apparently, with Delhi considered to be a highly-sensitive place in terms of security being the national capital, no political party, politician or top bureaucrat is in favour of giving administrative control of the Delhi Police to the state government.
According to senior officials in the know of things, the fight over the control of the Delhi Police that often breaks out between union home minister and chief minister is a fake one as both know that the Delhi Police will always remain with the Centre.
“It is just a mock fight on part of Sheila Dikshit too, as being the chief minister of Delhi she is answerable to the people of Delhi and has to shift the blame to the Delhi Police and her inability to control it. And as rightly pointed out by the union home minister, she also has not made any proposal to wrest the control of Delhi Police as she also knows that this is not possible and practical,” a senior government official said.
