Mayawati returns to her old games

Mayawati looked like she'd turned a new leaf when she came into power again, promising to clean up the administration and the law and order situation. Now allegations are rife that all she is interested in cleaning up are the state funds.

Within days she had transferred 300 officials of the IAS, the IPS and the state civil and police services, ostensibly because they were loyal to the previous government of Mulayam Singh And among those promoted was one of the 'three most corrupt' identified by UP IAS cadres who were disgusted with the degradation of the service.

It was UP's 'deteriorating law and order' that had ostensibly propelled the unity between the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, both condemning Governor Romesh Bhandari for the 'anarchic' situation under 'Mulayam's proxy rule'.

Within two days of assuming power, she assured that 'crime was well under control'. But in the 18 days following her accession, there were 27 killings in the state. Among those killed were Samajwadi Party leader and mafia don Veerendra Pratap Shahi, who recently crossed over to the BSP in Lucknow, the BSP district chief in Hardoi, the Congress district vice-president in Bulandshahar and the Samajwadi Party Yuvajan Sabha chief in Bahraich.

"It is actions that speak for themselves," said Mulayam Singh Yadav, claiming that a "reign of terror" was unleashed by the BSP-BJP combine

The worst charge against her is that she is facing is of indiscriminate transfers and corruption. "Mulayam had put his men everywhere," she had claimed. And using bogey as excuse, she has ordered an official merry-go-round.

"By indulging in mass transfers and branding officers, the politicians are compelling them to align with one or the other political party, which was an alarming trend," said an officer who has quit the IAS.

Contrary to her recent assertions that "caste will not be the consideration in transfers and postings", barring two of the 45 districts where district magistrates have been shifted, all are either from the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes or the backward communities. Besides, she has ordered that at least 20 per cent of the police inspectors incharge of police stations should be from the scheduled castes or tribes and 25 per cent from the OBCs.

But the bias is not so evident when the post involves the ability to gather funds for the BSP. Which is believed to be the reason one of the triumvirate of corruption in UP bagged the most important post after that of chief secretary, despite Mayawati's claims that she wants to clean the Augean stables.

Naturally, the IAS officers crusading for a good administration are most annoyed. They are even more unhappy that posts that call for dabbling with large amounts of money have been given to bureaucrats of dubious antecedents. In such cases, Mayawati is allegedly keeps head before heart and keeps scheduled caste officers out such lucrative slots.

"We have naturally become persona non grata, because we cannot turn into errand boys and fund collectors," said a senior scheduled caste IAS officer caustically. He was recently shunted off to an safe, innocuous posting because he could be an embarrassment to the Mayawati administration if he held a key post.

"In dealing with corrupt officials, she is no different from either Romesh Bhandari whom she condemns... or her umpteen predecessors" who have fostered corrupt officials, remarked a veteran Congress leader. He points out that the upper caste officer was close to Mulayam Singh Yadav earlier; now Mayawati, the champion of the backwards, has invited him into the fold. "You see, it is money that cuts across all other lines," he concludes.

Mayawati's current obsession is the memorial to B R Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution and a Rs 140 million park named after him. Work on them was left incomplete during her previous term as chief minister. The 40-feet tall memorial is being built at the 'Parivartan Chowk', next to an imposing statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. But now Mayawati is not insisting on installing the statue of Periyar E V Ramaswamy Naicker, who earned considerable notoriety in the sixties after garlanding the statue to Ram with shoes. In fact, that was one of the issues that accelerated the parting of ways between the BJP and BSP last time.

Mayawati was sufficiently obsessed with the park and the memorial to visit one of the two places every day. The landscaping for the park was done by Satish Gujral, renowned architect and brother of the prime minister.

She has also opted for a Rs 20 million boundary wall for the park, the earlier one being pulled down because it was not as attractive as that of the still incomplete Indira Gandhi Pratishthan next door. No bureaucrat even murmured.

What seems more surprising is the blind eye turned by the top BJP leadership, including the otherwise vociferous Kalyan Singh.

"Transfers and postings are the chief minister's prerogative," he asserts, adding, perhaps unnecessarily, "I would not like to make any comments on the chief minister's style of functioning." Housing and Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon went a step further in defending Mayawati, who had gone over to his home and tied a rakhi on his wrist the last time).

"So what if a memorial is being made in Ambedkar's memory; after all he was one of the luminaries this nation has produced," he said, pertinently. And there was no one to argue with that either.