NEW DELHI (TIP): In a first after becoming Delhi Chief Minister for the second time, Arvind Kejriwal on Feb 18 morning held a “Janta Darbar” at the Aam Aadmi Party office in Kaushambi, Ghaziabad.

Kejriwal met visitors for around three hours and took note of their problems. Most of the people who came to meet the CM were contractual employees who wanted to be made permanent and others who had lost their jobs. Giving permanent status to contractual employees was one of the biggest poll promises that the AAP government had made in their poll manifesto.

A contractual employee with the New Delhi Municipal Corporation, Lala Ram said: “I have been a contractual employee for a very long time now. The department does not give me and many others like me, a permanent job. I want to request  Kejriwal to make all the contractual employees in NDMC permanent.”

A group of women from Home Guard who had lost their job in 2013, also came to meet the Chief Minister. “All of us lost our job in the year 2013. The department hired people from a batch junior to us after sacking us. They assured us that they would give our jobs back but nothing happened. We had come to meet the CM about this issue during his last Janta Darbar also but we could not meet him. This time, we hope to meet him and hope that something will happen.”

Differently-abled Nahid from Shastri Park reached “Janta Darbar” complaining about his lost job. “I was working as a contract employee with Jag Pravesh Chand Hospital but three months ago, I was removed and now I do not have any job. I have come here hoping that Kejriwal listens to my problem and I get my job back,” Nahid said.

Some people came with nursery admission problems, others came with some civic issues. While many others came just to wish good luck to the CM and share their ideas with him.

The first “Janta Darbar”, however, was held minus the fan fare witnessed during the event held outside Delhi Secretariat that ended up in chaos during his previous stint as Delhi CM.

The district administration of Ghaziabad has granted permission to AAP to hold public meetings thrice a week for an hour at Mr. Kejriwal’s residence. To handle crowd and provide security during the meeting, a team of police personnel under the supervision of a police inspector were present.