Jasmine Shah, vice-chairperson of Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission (DDDC). (Source: Twitter)After ministers Satyendra Jain, Manish Sisodia and Rajendra Pal Gautam, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has trained its guns on another AAP cabinet-level member, Jasmine Shah for alleged “misuse of public office”.
Following a complaint of BJP MP Parvesh Singh Verma, the Planning Department of Delhi Government has issued a showcause notice to the Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission (DDDC) vice-chairperson, to reply to the notice within seven days. In his complaint, submitted in September, Verma said Shah, while working as the DDDC vice-chairperson “acted as official spokesperson of the Aam Aadmi Party for political gains, which is in violation of established procedures”.
The notice said that Shah was covered by the definition of a “public servant”. It added that it had been observed from transcripts of videos of him appearing in news debates that Shah used his office for political activities, which was “tantamount to misuse of public resources”. It also said that Shah had violated the “principle of neutrality”.
Shah is seen as AAP’s “non-politically political” man, who joined the party in 2014 and has been working on projects especially policy making and matters since 2016. During 2016 to 2018, he worked as advisor in the transport department and is also the brain behind Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s ambitious ‘Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy’.
He was appointed as the vice-chairperson of the DDDC in 2018. The post of DDDC V-C is equivalent to the rank of a Delhi government minister and the terms of reference for appointment are to advise the government on governance and technological solutions, and to evolve strategies for recommendations made by the body.He has been working on urban governance and policy issues and has been advising the Government of NCT of Delhi since 2016 on environment, transport, education and budget transparency reforms.
Shah is also the architect of Delhi’s first comprehensive Outcome Budget for 2017-18, a first-of-its-kind initiative in India to bring in complete transparency and accountability in public spending.
AAP government’s ambitious rozgaar budget of 2022-23, under which it aims to provide 20 lakhs jobs, was prepared under the supervision of Shah. He has also pushed to increase the staff numbers in the DDDC.
He has also worked on several crucial transport reforms of the Delhi government, such as the Electric Vehicle Policy, Common Mobility Card, bus route rationalisation, last-mile connectivity initiative, large-scale induction of electric buses, among other projects.
Before joining AAP, Shah also worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), where he was the Deputy Director of its South Asia office, and, prior to that, at the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.
He has completed B.Tech. and M.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras and a MPA degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, New York, where he was a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow.
Responding to the showcause notice, Shah said that the notice had been issued at the behest of the L-G and Verma: “I have seen the notice issued by the planning department, on behest of the L-G and BJP MP Verma. The L-G has no jurisdiction over the office of the DDDC vice-chairperson, which is a minister-rank position appointed by the Delhi Cabinet.”
Meanwhile, the Delhi Chief Minister, at an inaugural event of charging infrastructure where Shah was accompanying him, said, “It is wrong… He has been appointed by the Delhi Cabinet and can only be questioned by the Cabinet.”