Delhi Polls: Narendra Modi opposed pay panel’s advice in 2013, says Ajay Maken

NEW DELHI: Congress yesterday came down heavily on BJP over its "insensitive" attitude towards government employees. Addressing a public gathering at Lodhi Road, the party's campaign in-charge Ajay Maken said that the BJP government was hell-bent on taking decisions that would surely go against the interests of government employees.
Maken said that when in power, Congress had implemented the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations for the benefit of the government employees. Modi-led BJP, however, was not sympathetic towards bureaucrats, he claimed. Maken cited a letter written by the Gujarat government to the Centre in 2013, wherein the latter had argued that implementing the Seventh Pay Commission's recommendations would substantially burden the state government. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat at that time, he said.

Maken called the move regressive and claimed that the Modi government was in a mood to add further financial stress to government servants' lives by merging dearness allowance (DA) with the basic pay. "Modi's minimum governance plans basically translate to minimum government work-force," said Maken.

Maken alleged that Kejriwal was suspicious of all government officials to be corrupt. "When we introduced the Lokpal bill, we proposed that every bureaucrat from the joint secretary level onwards will be under its purview because corruption always trickles down from senior bosses. However, Kejriwal wanted all bureaucrats to be put under the purview of Lokpal. Why should you vote for someone who doesn't have any trust in you," Maken told a crowd of nearly a hundred people.

The meeting at Lodhi Road, which comes under the New Delhi assembly constituency, was aimed at garnering support from government employees, who live in the area. AAP's Arvind Kejriwal had won from this seat in the 2013 election.