Mayawati’s parting of ways with the NDA may make the Congress look at her differently. But that’s in the future. As for the present, the Digvijay Singh government has been under pressure from Congress MLAs to shunt out Dalit officials believed to be BSP sympathisers.Now there’s new evidence to show that orders for some of these transfers — effected months before the BSP walked out of NDA — were clearly political. The documents relate to Rajgarh, the Lok Sabha constituency of Digvijay’s brother Laxman Singh.Taking cognisance of a letter from Rajgarh Congress MLA Pratap Singh Mandloi who called for the immediate transfer of two sub-engineers (SE) ‘‘working for the BSP,’’ the Chief Minister’s office in June issued a note stating: ‘‘The letter of Pratap Singh Mandloi is attached along with. Two sub-engineers with the irrigation department in Rajgarh — Dandotia and Bhartiya — should be posted out of Rajgarh district with immediate effect.’’A copy was marked to the Chief Secretary. No reason, other than Mandloi’s allegations, were advanced for the transfer.The Chief Secretary was unavailable for comment and the state public relations department was unable to answer queries related to the issue. Finally, the Chief Minister’s office itself confirmed that the notesheet with The Indian Express was genuine.When Mandloi’s comments were sought, he said: ‘‘Yes, several of my letters have gone to the Chief Minister. These two are not the only officials whose transfers I have recommended. I cannot offer any proof that these people are working for the BSP, but it is open knowledge in my constituency.’’‘‘If they want to do such work, they should quit their jobs and then go about this work. My regret is that the Chief Minister has not acted on my complaint. The officials have not been transferred.’’While it’s true that these two transfers have not yet materialised, in Rajgarh alone at least five officials, unable to get someone to intervene on their behalf, have been transferred on such charges.Kailash Vijaivargai, BJP mayor of Indore, who released these documents to the media, named the five officials: S C L Jatav, deputy director agriculture, transferred to Bhopal; L N Jatav of the agriculture department, transferred to Shajapur; R A Kaushik, irrigation SDO, transferred to Petlawad; Nayak, agriculture SDO, transferred to Ujjain; and, R Indoria of the agriculture department, moved to Ujjain.The demand to transfer Dalit officials, on the ground that they work for the BSP, has been raised by several Congress MLAs. In fact, at a recent press conference, Digvijay Singh was asked whether state intelligence had prepared a list of officials who had attended a BSP rally in UP and if there was a move to transfer them. The CM said he too had heard something similar but had no knowledge of any such move.
