Sacked AAP adviser Raghav Chadha refunds Rs 2.5 salary to home ministry

A day after his appointment as Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's adviser was cancelled, Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha on Wednesday said he had returned Rs 2.50 he received as "salary" for 75 days he was on the post in 2016.

The Delhi government's General Administration Department (GAD), citing a Home Ministry letter dated April 10, on Tuesday cancelled the appointment of nine advisers and consultants in various departments, including that of Chadha as Adviser (finance).

In a letter to the Ministry, Chadha said that he was appointed to the post from January 15 to March 31 in 2016 to assist Sisodia in the preparation of the 2016-17 Budget.

"...I accept my retrospective sacking from the post I held for 75 days two years ago," he said in the letter, tagging along a draft for Rs 2.50.

He criticised Delhi bureaucrats, claiming that they were working "hand in glove" with the Bharatiya Janata Party by choice or under duress and were "uncooperative" over the Delhi government's reforms, and thus the role of advisers was "ever more important".

The nine advisers whose appointments were cancelled are Amardeep Tiwari (Media adviser to the Law Minister), Arunoday Prakash (Media Adviser to Deputy CM), Atishi Marlena (Media Adviser to Deputy CM), Dinkar Adib (OSD to Minister Satyender Jain), Ram Kumar Jha (Adviser, logistics, to Sisodia), Samir Malhotra (consultant, Satyender Jain), Prashant Saxena and Rajat Tiwari (Aide de Camps to Power Minister).

"I too was one of these young foolhardy individuals who thought they brought value to the table...," Chadha wrote in the letter.

Taking a dig at BJP leaders Sambit Patra and Shazia Ilmi over their appointment as Directors in the Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd and Engineers India Ltd respectively, the AAP leader derisively questioned if he would have been better placed at a "plump position" in public sector undertaking with "considerable pecuniary benefits".