Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party has come out in open protesting against the appointment of former cricketer Chetan Chauhan as the Chairman of National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) by the Narendra Modi government.
The party has accused that the appointment is a gesture in return for defending Arun Jaitley in the alleged the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) scam in 2015, as reported by the Hindu.
Chauhan, a two time BJP MP, will reportedly begin his three year tenure at NIFT on Monday.
The DDCA was a highly politically charged scam that pitted Arvind Kejriwal of against Arun Jaitley, the finance minister in the Modi government.
The DDCA scam was brought back to the limelight by the Delhi chief minister who set up a Committee of Inquiry (CoI) in 2015 to investigate into alleged financial irregularities based on earlier complaints from BJP MP Kirti Azad.
The association was headed by Arun Jaitley for 13 years till December 2013. Jaitley, while denying the charges pressed against him, later filed a defamation case against Kejriwal.
In December 2015, Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung annulled the inquiry committee citing that such probes could be initiated only by the Centre or states whereas Delhi was a Union Territory.
Last year, Chauhan defended Jaitley saying the latter had worked for bettering the DDCA, according to this report by the Indian Express.
Chauhan, 68, is currently the vice-president of the DDCA and is a senior member of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. He also runs a cricket academy and owns a printing press, reported the Indian Express.
BJP's Chetan Chauhan made Chairman of NIFT,PM&Jaitley's gift for keeping corruption at DDCA secret,he is VP there!Does he know fashion tech!
— Adarsh Shastri (@adarshshastri) June 18, 2016
Before Chauhan's appointment, there has been a few other high-profile appointments by the government that hogged the limelight and raised a few eyebrows.
Kiran Bedi: The former IPS officer was appointed in May this year as the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry by the government. While the AAP and the JD(U) expressed strong reservations over the appointment, the ruling party in Puducherry, the Congress, said it was willing to cooperate so long as the LG acted within constitutional limits. There were speculations that after the Kejriwal-Najeeb Jung turf war in Delhi, the government was making calculated move in making political appointments where states are ruled by opposition parties.
Vinod Rai: The appointment of the former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) as the Chairman of the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) in February this year was dubbed as "quid pro quo" by the Congress. The Congress cited that the appointment violated Article 148 (4) of the Constitution that bars CAG from holding office under the Centre or states even after ceasing to be CAG.
Pahlaj Nihalani: The film producer, who created the "Har har Modi, Ghar ghar Modi" during Modi's 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, was made the chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification — which was recently in the headlines for banning "Udta Punjab" — in January this year. Many speculated if the appointment was a gesture for his campaign contributions.
Other controversial appointments in 2014 included that of Gajendra Chauhan to head the Film and Television Institute of India; Girish Chandra Tripathi as the vice chancellor of Banaras Hindu University; and Y. Sudhershan Rao as the chairman of Indian Council for Historical Research.
