Lucknownama

Mayawati may have given back the land for the proposed rail coach factory at Rae Bareli, but her war against Sonia Gandhi continues, albeit quietly.

New gambit

Mayawati may have given back the land for the proposed rail coach factory at Rae Bareli, but her war against Sonia Gandhi continues, albeit quietly. The BSP Brahmin Brigade — led by Satish Mishra and the party’s state president Swami Prasad Maurya, a native of Rae Bareli — is working overtime to win over three dozen prominent Brahmin Congress leaders of the district who have served the party for the last four decades. The BSP is particularly targeting Brahmins who have either been let down or humiliated by Kishori Sharma, the all-powerful aide of Sonia Gandhi. The plan is to present these leaders on the BSP stage when Mayawati holds her “maharally” in Rae Bareli.

Reverse swing

For sometime, the BSP had been trying to lure two Congress MLAs from Rae Bareli into its fold. The negotiations were in an advanced stage when the government cancelled land allotment for the coach factory. The political storm it triggered and Sonia Gandhi’s visit on October 14, forced the legislators to beat a hasty retreat. They realised that they could not win by-elections now. The legislators, known party hoppers, were offered the rank of ministers, but Mayawati reportedly insisted that they would have to resign from the assembly and contest the by-elections. The Congress high command was aware of the poaching, but could do little. Mayawati’s action helped the party indirectly to keep its flock intact.

Diwali blues

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Last week, several organisations and political parties found that there was no place left to put up the usual Happy Diwali hoardings. The Lucknow Municipal Corporation told them that all prime locations had been booked by BSP general secretary Akhilesh Das, who is to contest the Lok Sabha polls from the city — which is also why only Akhilesh Das hoardings could be seen around the town. One had heard of painting the town red, but in this case, Das had managed to paint it blue.

The great unknown

The state government has given permission to prosecute 12 IPS officers allegedly involved in the police recruitment scam. This clears the way for filing of chargesheet against them. But will the government also suspend these officers? “How can the government suspend IPS officers if it has allowed a charge-sheeted Home Secretary, Mahesh Gupta, to continue?” wondered an IPS officer. Gupta was chargesheeted by the CBI in a case of irregularities in the recruitment in the Information Department in 1998. Obviously, IPS officers think the government cannot adopt a different yardstick for them. But, then, who knows the mind of the government?

Twenty20 solution

Since the government seems to enjoy playing musical chairs with babus, the bureaucrats who take their work seriously are thinking of changing their strategy. Instead of going for long-term projects, they are now concentrating on short-time schemes having a time-frame of one to three months. “No one can say how long you will last in a department. So, it’s better to work on projects where you can actually do something in a short time,” reasoned an officer in the Education Department. That may give one a sense of achievement. But it also means that in a state where the social and economic indicators are among the lowest, no one will have the time to address problems that require patient, persistent effort over a longer period.