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Kalyan prepares to crack down on 'shady' ministers in his Cabinet

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Buoyed by the Supreme Court's decision to refer to a five-judge Constitution Bench former chief minister Mayawati's petition seeking to disqualify 12 Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs who crossed over to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's side, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh has begun putting his house in order.

As a first step, he has axed three members of his jumbo-sized 95-member council of ministers.

The move came on the heels of then Chief Justice Madan Mohan Punchhi's order transferring Mayawati's petition to a five-judge bench after the division bench which heard the case returned a divided verdict.

Interestingly, one of the sacked ministers, Shiv Ganesh Lodhi, belongs to the Jantantrik BSP, the breakaway faction of the BSP against which Mayawati is seeking action.

The other two, Sunder Singh Baghel and Gorakh Prasad Nishad, are old BJP hands.

While Baghel was dropped for his public outbursts against the chief minister just before the Supreme Court order, Lodhi and Nishad are said to have been indulging in blatant malpractices despite repeated warnings.

Having got his way, Kalyan Singh is now out to crack the whip on ministers who are alleged to have had links with gangster Sriprakash Shukla who was gunned down by a joint UP-Delhi police team in Ghaziabad last month.

Kalyan Singh's determination was plain when, in reply to a query at a media conference, he declared: "Yes, I have ordered a high-level inquiry into the alleged nexus between Sriprakash Shukla and certain persons... No matter how high or mighty one might be, there will be no reprieve for him from any quarter."

With the chief minister seeking the inquiry report within three days, he has sent out the message loud and clear that he means business.

According to highly placed sources, of the seven ministers who were associated with the slain gangster, three are from the BJP, one each is from the Loktantrik Congress Party and the JBSP, and the remaining two are Independents.

Confirming that there is "irrefutable evidence against at least three of the ministers", the sources said, "their fate will be decided in a day or two."

Besides these ministers, the special task force that hunted the gangster is believed to have identified at least two senior Indian Police Service officers and a prominent Congress politician among Shukla's connections.

Senior police and home department officials said politicians had established links with Shukla to serve their own interests, which included settling scores with rivals or grabbing lucrative government contracts.

They paid him back with "choice" postings for his chosen police officers. The antecedents of such police officers are also being investigated now.

Armed with the inquiry report (believed to have been submitted yesterday), Kalyan Singh is expected to axe some more ministers soon. And in the changed circumstances, this might not cause him much trouble.

After all, once the nexus of these ministers with Shukla is made public, they will be unable to defend themselves. Likewise, their party leaders will not find it easy to defend the men openly.

In this way, the chief minister is aiming to kill three birds with one stone. First, the action will restore his image of a tough and forthright leader which has been badly tarnished by the way he has had to accommodate so many defectors to save his government.

Second, he will be rid of 'irritants' that he has not only failed to discipline, but who were also a constant source of pinpricks.

Third, his action will send warning signals to other 'irritants' in the coalition that they are no longer immune to action.

Kalyan Singh is also making it known to all concerned that he is prepared to recommend dissolution of the state assembly and call a fresh election, which most of his detractors are in no position to face at the moment.

If his allies still push him to the wall, and Kalyan Singh is forced to make good his threat, he will still stand to gain because his action will create a favourable public perception that the extreme step had to be taken because he wanted to straighten matters in the state.

Significantly, the move to drop the three ministers was kept a closely guarded secret. Even state BJP chief Rajnath Singh had no inkling about it until just before the announcement. Likewise, the decision to order an inquiry into the criminal links of some ministers was taken without informing Rajnath Singh.

While the party boss has since been trying to limit the damage to his prestige by pleading that the decisions were "the chief minister's prerogative", the BJP ministers who have been kicked out are spewing venom against Kalyan Singh.

They have accused Kalyan Singh of 'weakening the party' and called him 'arrogant'.

But there is little they can do beyond that. Kalyan Singh has their dossiers ready, just as he is now doing with the others who are likely to be dropped.

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