| Published on 29-08-2008 In General |
| Viewed 1124 times |
| Chauhan's 1000 days of anarchy and corruption |
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Written by
N.D.Sharma |
Down with BJP! Long live Shivraj Singh Chauhan!! That seems to be the refrain when the Madhya Pradesh chief minister tells a conference of Panches and Sarpanches in Vidisha that if he becomes the chief minister again (after the November elections), the rate of interest on cooperative loans to farmers will be reduced from five per cent to three per cent; or when he issues large advertisements to the newspapers listing the achievements of "his" government on completion of 100 days or 1000 days (as now) of his chief ministership.
All over it is "he" more than the BJP. He can feel proud – no doubt – for being the first BJP chief minister to complete 1000 days in office. None of his predecessors, Virendra Kumar Saklecha, Kailash Joshi, Sunderlal Patwa, Uma Bharati and Babulal Gaur, could achieve this feat. In his exultation, he does not even spare Patwa, his mentor, supporter and guide so far. Without naming Patwa, he describes as crass (behooda) Patwa's well-publicised observation that the bureaucracy is like a horse and the political leadership has to keep it reined firmly.
In an a newspaper interview given by him on completion of 1000 days as the chief minister, Chauhan says that he has never liked this uncouth language of horse and rider. He could achieve so much because he has always considered the bureaucrats as "my own" and part of "my team".
Chauhan did not have even a day's experience of working in a government when the circumstances catapulted him to the chair of chief minister in November 2005. He was essentially the choice of the party's central leadership and the State unit of the party was not with him. Those owing loyalty to Uma Bharati were seething with anger for depriving her of the opportunity of taking over the reins of the State government even after she was cleared in the Hubli court case and the supporters of Babulal Gaur were simply bewildered as to why Gaur was removed.
Inexperience and mistrust of the partymen made Chauhan cultivate the bureaucracy. Soon after becoming the chief minister, he called a two-day conference of secretaries and Collectors to learn from them the mantra of development. It was for the first time that the head of the elected representatives of the people had besought the bureaucrats to guide him as to how the State could be developed, instead of telling them: "this is the ruling party's agenda and you have to implement it". As could be expected, the IAS officers at the conference took the opportunity to give vent to their own grievances, mainly against the political leadership. The unpleasant issues such as corruption and the establishment of the rule of law were scrupulously avoided.
He has since been working as the most trusted friend of the bureaucracy, taking care of them in every respect, ignoring corruption and malpractice charges against them and even amending the rules and regulations to help them. In return, he is certain that only the bureaucrats will be able to help him become chief minister again. For over six months he has been busy transferring and re-transferring the bureaucrats and posting them at places where he thinks they will be useful at the time of the elections.
Chauhan's bragging over the "achievements" during the 1000 days of his chief ministership notwithstanding, the State is completely in the grip of anarchy and corruption.
Hoodlums going under the name of ABVP and Bajrang Dal are ruling the roost. The police personnel are doing everything except policing. A recent incident will illustrate the extent of lawlessness under Shivraj Singh Chauhan's bureaucrat-friendly governance.
The MP Tourism Development Corporation, a State government undertaking, decided to organise a Kashmiri food festival in its flagship hotel in Bhopal. The evening it was to be inaugurated, a group of Bajrang Dal activists stormed the hotel and indulged in vandalism, shouting slogans that they would not permit anything Kashmiri till the Jammu and Kashmir government re-allotted the land to the Amarnath Shrine Board. The food festival was cancelled. The police all the time looked the other way. Not even a case was registered.
Chauhan and his bhai-bandhus in the Sangh Parivar obviously do not realise the implications of such protests. The people in the Kashmir valley are already feeling alienated because of multifarious reasons – geographical, historical, administrative and political. Such protests against "anything Kashmiri" at such a crucial time when the border State is virtually sitting on a volcano will only aggravate their feeling of estrangement. One wonders if the Sangh Parivar wants to force the Kashmiris to secede. (Where will then the Amarnath temple be?)
If only a fraction of the announcements made by the chief minister were implemented, the State would probably have had a different look now. Providing drinking water to the people is the most basic amenity that a government is expected to provide to its people. Forget the rural areas, even the cities inhabited by VIPs and always under the scanner of the media are without regular supply of clean drinking water. No one knows where the hundreds of crores of rupees have gone in the name of providing drinking water. Now the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, also controlled by the BJP, has decided to supply drinking water on alternate days from mid-September. Incidentally, Bhopal is among the four cities where a Rs 1366-crore scheme called Project Uday, aimed at providing clean drinking water to the residents, has been in operation for quite some time.
It will require a strenuous effort to decide if Chauhan's regime will be remembered more for frightening deterioration in the law and order situation or for the exorbitant growth in corruption at every level. He himself gets the dubious distinction of being the first ever chief minister against whom a corruption case has been registered under orders of a special court. Besides, over a dozen of his cabinet colleagues are also facing corruption charges.
It may also be added to the list of his "achievements" that he has roped in his corruption-web, rather crudely, even the Lokayukta who was supposed to have investigated the corruption charges against Chauhan and other ministers. Lokayukta Ripusudan Dayal has lost his moral authority even to stay at his post in view of a Bhopal court having directed the police to inquire into the corruption charges against him and his wife and the Madhya Pradesh High Court having turned down, unequivocally and emphatically, his plea to quash the Bhopal court's directive to the police
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