With wife as DCW chief, Jaihind says capable should get posts

Amid reports of the appointment of Swati Maliwal as the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief, her husband and Haryana Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Naveen Jaihind said his wife was a confidante of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and that he would not oppose "the appointment of capable people to key posts".

Amid reports of the appointment of Swati Maliwal as the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief, her husband and Haryana Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Naveen Jaihind said his wife was a confidante of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and that he would not oppose "the appointment of capable people to key posts".

“My wife has an old association with the Aam Aadmi Party and Kejriwal. People are not aware about her contribution to the party and the India Against Corruption movement,” Rohtak-based Jaihind told Hindustan Times.

He claimed that though he was not aware about her appointment as the DCW chief, he would not oppose the appointment of capable people to key posts. “Yes, we (AAP leaders) had opposed the appointment of relatives of influential people in Haryana but we do not oppose the appointment of capable people to important positions,” he said.

He said Maliwal, at present adviser (grievances) to the Delhi chief minister, was an RTI activist and the youngest member of the India Against Corruption movement. She has been associated with Kejriwal’s NGO Parivartan since 2006.

Maliwal’s appointment as adviser (grievances) had also triggered a controversy with opposition parties targeting Kejriwal for promoting nepotism in the Delhi government.

Maliwal was a software engineer before she met Jaihind in 2008 during social activist Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption. She married Jaihind in 2013.