Will do everything to reinstate Delhi Commission for Women staff: Kejriwal

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday accused the BJP of snatching the livelihoods of hundreds of contractual employees of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) before Diwali and assured them that they would be reinstated.

The DCW, in an order earlier on Monday, discontinued the services of all its contractual staff with immediate effect.

Kejriwal assured the affected workers that his party would fight to get their jobs reinstated. "I assure my sisters who have been fired from DCW that I will get them their jobs back, no matter what it takes," the former Delhi Chief Minister said in a post on X.

Senior AAP leader and former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia criticised the BJP for dismissing the staff, calling it a direct contradiction of the saffron party's promises of job creation in its manifestos.

“The BJP has done wrong by snatching the jobs of people just before Diwali. Their manifestos talk about giving employment, but they are taking away the jobs of people who have been working on contracts for the last 30 years. How will these people celebrate Diwali now?” he asked.

The AAP said it was "paradoxical" that while the BJP promised to regularise contractual staff after coming to power in Delhi, the Lieutenant Governor (LG) appointed by their Central government terminated the services of the DCW staff.

The DCW's decision to discontinue the services of its contractual employees was based on an earlier order from the Women and Child Development (WCD) Department dated April 29, which had approval from the LG.

According to official sources, the decision to terminate the employees was due to complaints about irregularities in the hiring process.

A total of 223 contractual posts were created in the DCW, but 52 staff were engaged with the commission when the WCD had discontinued their service in April this year, they said.

A committee appointed by the then LG had submitted a report in June 2017, recommending that the appointment of contractual staff engaged without having sanctioned posts and without following the due procedure could not be allowed to continue, the sources added.