Powerful and fearless Three incidents,all in the space of a month,show that in Uttar Pradesh,the powerful can get away with terrorising and beating up government employees on duty. Early in January,a man in a red beaconed vehicle brandished a handgun at a home guard when told not to park in a no-parking area in Hazratganj. Till date,there has been no FIR nor arrest,although the victim lodged a complaint along with the number of the vehicle. In Meerut,BSP MLA Haji Yakub Qureshi and his men allegedly manhandled a policeman and tore off his uniform for having made them take a diversion because of a procession. Again,there was no arrest nor FIR,although the incident took place in the presence of several policemen. Last week,some men walked into the office of the UP Rajkiya Nirman Nigam in Gomti Nagar and beat up M M Saxena,Assistant Project Engineer in charge of maintenance of the Ambedkar Memorial. His colleagues lodged an FIR,but no one was arrested. The police said the engineer and his colleagues were not cooperating. The fact is that they are scared. I could not identify any of them. They entered my office and started beating me. I did not see what they were armed with. I am clueless, Saxena said. Other employees,who rushed Saxena to hospital,did not want to talk,either. The assailants drove away on motorcycles,but nobody has the numbers. All under a chief minister who had promised a bhaymukt samaj. One seat too many Dhananjay Singh,BSP MP from Jaunpur,is unwanted in his hometown. His name is missing from the advertisements of Jaunpur Virasat,the three-day annual cultural festival that concludes on Monday. On Saturday,Culture Minister Subhash Pandey was the chief guest. On Sunday,Textile and Silk Industry Minister Jagdish Narayan Rai was the chief guest. On the concluding day,Fisheries Minister Dharamraj Nishad will be the chief guest. All three are from Jaunpur. This is the first time Dhananjay has been given short shrift by the Department of Culture and Tourism,and the Jaunpur Nagar Palika Parishad,who are the joint organisers. Apparently,Dhananjays growing political ambitions have annoyed other BSP leaders. First,he became MP from Jaunpur. Next,he got his father Rajdeo Singh elected as MLA from Rari,the assembly seat he had vacated. In the panchayat elections,he got his favourites elected in several places. Now,the other BSP leaders have decided to isolate him. War of invites The cold war between Beni Prasad Verma,Union Minister of State for Steel,and P L Punia,Lok Sabha member and chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes,shows no sign of abating. At a higher level,the growing proximity between Verma and Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari seems to have annoyed state Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi. When Verma organised a rally on his birthday at his hometown Barabanki,Tiwari was the only senior party leader present. Even Punia,who is the local MP,was missing. In fact,he was not even invited. In retaliation,Punia organised a Dalit sammelan in Gonda,which is Vermas Lok Sabha constituency. Punia said nothing political should be read into this,as he was organising such programmes at all divisional headquarters. But he next organised a Dalit sammelan in Barabanki to mark Sant Ravi Das Jayanti. Joshi was present there. Obviously,Verma was not even sent an invite. When reminded that unlike Gonda,Barabanki was not a divisional headquarters,Punia replied,It is the headquarters of my constituency. Probe politics The Samajwadi Party has postponed the announcement of party tickets for 2012 assembly elections till June. It is keeping a close watch on the progress of the CBI probe into the 2G spectrum scam. With the CBI knocking on the doors of people close to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi,the SP is confident that after the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu,due in April-May,there will be a realignment of political forces within the UPA. Therefore,it wants to wait. The SP is keen to cobble together an anti-Mayawati front,and tie up with the Congress and Rashtriya Lok Dal. At present,neither is amenable to the idea. Who knows,the Tamil Nadu election results may soften them up. Musical chairs The state governments decision to post 1978-batch IAS officer Desh Deepak Verma as member of the Revenue Board has come as a bolt from the blue. Verma was considered the frontrunner for the post of chief secretary after the retirement of Atul Gupta on March 31. The state government had requisitioned his services from the Centre,where he was additional secretary in the Ministry of Consumer Affairs. He returned in the last week of January and was offered the post of principal secretary,food and civil supplies,which he was unwilling to accept. Soon,the government reportedly developed second thoughts about making him the chief secretary. Now he has been sent to the Revenue Board,which is regarded as the dumpyard of bureaucrats. Members of the board include Sunanda Prasad,Mukul Singhal and Sanjay Bhoosreddy.
