In his strongest assertion amid his ongoing tussle with the Arvind Kejriwal dispensation, top cop B S Bassi on Friday said it would be a "very unfortunate" day in the history of the capital if the Delhi Police comes under the city government and its functioning under the Centre's jurisdiction was "perfect".
"It will be a very unfortunate day in the history of Delhi. As a citizen of Delhi I can say it would be a bad fortune for Delhi. They have the right to make a political demand. It is political posturing. And as a citizen of Delhi I have the right to say this is not right for Delhi citizens," Bassi said.
Justifying his point, he said that under the present arrangement where it is under the Union government, it does not have to face any "local vested interest" as the prime minister or home minister have no stake here.
"The present system is the best. No Prime Minister has any vested interest in Delhi unless belongs to Delhi. I have not seen any PM having any local interest in Delhi during my long career.”
"Every prime minister would want progress of Delhi but he will not have any local vested interest. Generally any Home minister also will not have any local vested interest in Delhi," he told PTI in an interview.
He went on to add that any sort of tinkering with the current structure would be "injustice" with the residents of the capital as the force has "reasonable autonomy" now.
"And any tinkering would be injustice with the people of Delhi as police would not strengthen rather weaken due to this. If you tinker and place it under the city government local vested interests would come into play. I have worked in Goa, Pondicherry on that basis I can say local vested interests would definitely be created if it comes under the city government," he said.
On the question of AAP government mulling a referendum on the issue of statehood, he said the move would be "unconstitutional".
"Any referendum under the Indian constitution is unconstitutional. Indian constitution does not permit referendum as it stands today and unless it is amended it is not permissible. It shall be an unconstitutional act," he said.
Bassi strongly rejected senior AAP leader Ashutosh's suggestion that he was working as per the instructions of a very "influential cabinet minister/an official very close to PM..."
"Ashutosh's assertions are incorrect. This (Jitender Singh Tomar's arrest) was a legitimate decision of the investigating officer. It's a total incorrect belief on the party of anyone. Neither previous government nor this government have asked me to do any wrong thing," he said.
Bassi said there were no possibilities of a "constitutional breakdown" due to the current impasse as "it is a small storm that will pass."
Referring to the series of advertisements released by the AAP government some of which also targeted the Delhi Police, he said, "Today people understand the truth and can see through political posturing. Their (people) problem is of bread and butter so these issues are like entertainment to them."
Bassi, who became Delhi's top cop in 2013, said he chose to speak to the media over these issues to "educate" the public as he did not have "resources through which I can educate the public via advertisements."
Saying that he did not have anything against AAP, he advised the ruling party to focus on improving the city's education and health infrastructure instead.
"Government has a lot of work with it. They have to work a lot in improving government school infrastructure, leave aside MCD schools which are completely in shambles. Also health system, where clinics don't have doctors. Delhi doesn't have ambulance service so we have chipped in through our PCR service and will continue to do that," he said.
Claiming that the standoff was not sending any negative message among the people, Bassi said "I have instructed officers to not waste even a second over these matters. Our work will improve out of this criticism as lack of criticism invites complacency. It's creating a situation where we can not afford to be lax."
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