Amid the intense stand-off over the Centre-promulgated Ordinance that gives it fresh control over services in the Capital, the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government’s scrimmage with its bureaucrats went up a notch higher on Saturday with Delhi revenue minister Atishi Singh castigating chief secretary Naresh Kumar for displaying “laxity” in disbursing relief money to flood affected victims of Delhi.

In a statement issued by the minister, the government expressed its “shock” at having unearthed that the executive arm of the government managed to disburse ex-gratia relief of Rs 10,000 to “only 197 out of 4716 families who were staying at relief camps during the floods” despite “10 days having passed since the Delhi cabinet took its decision to the relief money” to the flood-affected citizens spread across six districts of the region.

The sharply worded statement, which was clearly aimed at pulling up the chief secretary, worked out a math to show the kind slackness shown by the officers. The minister referred to the chief secretary’s July 15 order to deploy 19 IAS and 18 DANICS officers to oversee relief and rehabilitation. “But in 10 days, 19 IAS and 18 DANICS officers - along with 6 DMs, 6 ADMs and 18 SDMS - have not been able to process this relief package for a mere 4,716 families,” the minister said in her statement.

“Given the number of officers deployed for flood relief and rehabilitation, each of these officers had to process the relief for 70 families. This means they had to provide relief to seven families per day. And that too has not been done," the statement went on to add.

“If they are showing such laxity in times of emergency and disaster, I am deeply concerned about what they would be doing in the day-to-day tasks of the departments,” the minister’s reprimanding tone was hard to miss.

Boosting up her taskmaster persona, Singh directed the chief secretary to cancel weekend leave of the deployed officers to process the pending relief amount to the victims and submit a status report of the job done to her and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal by 6 pm on Monday.

Delhi experienced unprecedented inundation recently after waters from the overflowing Yamuna River gushed into the city after the region received its highest rainfall in four decades. Besides throwing public life to a halt, the flooding caused large-scale setbacks to economic activities and threw up questions on civic and environmental development undertaken by successive administrations.

That notwithstanding, politics continues to maintain its own flow. The current row with the Delhi bureaucracy is the latest of multiple face-offs the AAP brass has had with its government babus in recent times. On July 28, the AAP dispensation and home secretary Ashwini Kumar confronted over the postponement of the National Capital Civil Services Authority meeting. Before that, AAP ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj and Atishi Singh had taken on Kumar for the deployment of the army and NDRF to control a breach in a drain regulator that caused Yamuna flood water to inundate the ITO area.

Political observers feel that the strained relationship is likely to be a direct fall out of the controversial Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023. The Ordinance not only allows bureaucrats in the “permanent” National Capital Civil Service Authority (NCCSA) to veto the chief minister on matters regarding transfers, postings, prosecution sanctions, disciplinary proceedings and vigilance issues of civil service officers but also, arguably, takes substantial powers away from the Delhi government by aiming to put the Lieutenant Governor in the driver’s seat by giving him the power to take a final call on any decision taken by the NCCSA regarding services.

The Bill to replace the ordinance is likely to be taken up in the Lok Sabha on Monday, news agencies reported on Friday.

Kejriwal now has the commitment from all Opposition parties, including the Congress who have united under the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc to take on the BJP-led NDA in 2024 general elections, to oppose the Ordinance both in Parliament and outside on grounds that it’s a “brazen attack on the Constitution”.

“These series of face offs between the Kejriwal government and the bureaucracy are nothing more than the AAP’s bid to intensify its opposition to the Ordinance in the run-up to its tabling before the Parliament for passage as a law as also giving the party its biggest issue against the BJP ahead of the elections next year,” an observer said.