Keshubhai comes in for flak for avoiding quake-hit areas

Keshubhai comes in for flak for avoiding quake-hit areas
BASHIR PATHAN

GANDHINAGAR, FEB 11: Former chief minister Babubhai Jashbhai Patel had pitched his tents in Morbi for over a month and successfully guided the rescue and relief operations in the 1978 dam-burst tragedy. Similarly, former Maharashtra chief minister Sharad Pawar had made quake-ravaged Latur his base for a week and supervised the relief work.

But, the killer quake that struck the desert district of Kutch and other parts of Gujarat on January 26 appears to have had little bearing on Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, who has chosen to confine himself either to his plush fifth floor-chamber in the Secretariat building or to the Central Control Room in the capital.

Barring the customry aerial survey of some affected areas in Kutch just before Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's whirlwind visit to Kutch and Ahmedabad and a symbolic one-day visit to Bhachau after the PM's tour, the Chief Minister has been spending most of his time in Gandhinagar.

Describing Patel as an ``arm-chair Chief Minister'', Congress MP and former chief minister Shankarsinh Vaghela told The Indian Express here on Saturday: ``Keshubhai was Irrigation Minister in the Janata Party government in 1978 when the Morbi dam disaster had happened. He should have taken a cue from the then chief minister Babubhai Patel who had not only camped in the Saurashtrian town for over a month and led the official machinery from the front, but also held Cabinet meetings there to take all policy decisions without rushing back to Gandhinagar.

``I had suggested to Prime Minister Vajpayee during his visit to quake-hit Kutch that he should direct Kehubhai to camp at Bhuj and supervise the official machinery and coordinate efforts of the various agencies engaged in the relief and rescue works in the border district,'' Vaghela said, adding that ``either the failing health of the Chief Minister or his lacking in administrative skills is preventing him from staying at Bhuj''.

In the days immediately after the disaster, Keshubhai was shuttling aimlessly between Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad to find out the ``full details'' of the damage caused by the earthquake, but stayed away from even the affected areas of Ahmedabad where multi-storeyed buildings had collapsed like house of cards. The task was initially left to state Home Minister Haren Pandya who represents the Ellis Bridge Assembly constituency in the city.

During his brief visit to Kutch, Patel put himself in a tent at Bhachau and left for Bhuj the very next day, where he declared to the press: ``I am going to stay put at the district headquarters at least for a week and suprevise personally the rescue/relief operations in the worst-hit district.'' However, he spent barely half a day at Bhuj and left for Gandhinagar to ``organise'' the official machinery from the capital.

Since then, he has been at his office in the CMO or the Central Control Room, holding a series of meetings with senior officials and also organising video conferences either with the chief co-ordinator and the Kutch Collector or Industries Minister Suresh Mehta who camping in Bhuj to monitor the relief and rescue works in the district.

Pleading anonymity, a Keshubhai detractor within the ruling BJP said: ``Merely holding long meetings video conferences with government officials at the Control Room will not boost the morale of the official machinery or NGOs fighting the natural calamity and providing succour to the surviving quake-victims in the worst-affected Kutch and other parts of the state. He should take a cue not only from Babubhai Patel and Sharad Pawar, but also follow his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Chandrababu Naidu's decision to camp inseveral areas devastated by the recent cyclone in Andhra Pradesh and guide the relief perations.''

Even officials manning the Central Control Room have been expressing their strong resentment over Keshubhai's presence, saying" ``The holding of frequent meetings and video conferences by the CM and the presence of a large entourage of his personal staff and security guards keeps us all on tenterhooks, hampering the monitoring and data collection of relief and rescue-related works being carried out in the quake-ravaged areas.''