As Mulayam Singh Yadav takes oath as Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, P.L. Punia will be wondering, ‘‘What next?’’. This 1971 batch IAS officer, many insist, is the most powerful civil servant in Uttar Pradesh. The reputation is not new. Punia was principal secretary to Mayawati in all her three terms as chief minister (1995, 1997 and 2002-03). Mulayam will remember him too; Punia was principal secretary in the chief minister’s office when Mulayam previously ruled Uttar Pradesh, between 1993-95. Right now Mulayam have Punia on his mind for an altogether different reason. Punia has been interrogated twice by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the controversial Taj Heritage Corridor (THC) project. Punia’s personal noting on a THC-related file was quite categorical, ‘‘CM avgat hueen (the chief minister was informed).’’ His reported admission to the CBI that Mayawati was aware of the project has helped the agency build a possible case for Mayawati’s interrogation. It is a case both Mulayam and his new-found friends in the BJP would dearly love to push. Somewhere in this whirl will be decided the future of Punia, like his year-mates promoted to chief secretary rank only a month ago. The Dalit from Rothak (Haryana), he was the only survivor of the Mulayam regime after Mayawati withdrew support to and then overthrew it in 1995. The relationship between the BSP queen and the upstaged SP chieftain was in smithereens. Mulayam’s party workers famously ‘‘misbehaved’’ with Mayawati, keeping her under siege in a dingy room in Lucknow’s state guest house on June 2 ,1995. The bitterness still lingers. Mulayam and Mayawati grew to despise each other. When Mayawati became chief minister just hours after that ‘‘guest house incident’’, anybody who was somebody in Mulayam raj found himself in the doghouse. Punia was the one exception. He stayed put on the fifth floor of the state secretariat, as the chief minister’s aide. Later, Punia remained important enough in the chief ministries of Ram Prakash Gupta (1999-2000) and Rajnath Singh (2001-02), losing his clout only when Kalyan Singh moved him to the state administrative tribunal, an IAS Kala Pani. Now, in a mirror image of the 1995 changeover, Mulayam is expected to neutralise much of Mayawati’s actions. Punia too may have to finally leave the principal secretary’s office. Yet he is certain, whispers insist, to be ‘‘rewarded’’ with a ‘‘good posting’’. Forget the inconvenient CBI questions, Uttar Pradesh’s best-networked bureaucrat is indispensable. A colleague in the IAS explains why, ‘‘Punia got the work of SP supporters done during Mayawati’s government. This is a fact no one will believe.’’ What is the secret of Punia’s success? The soft-spoken, bespectacled man is known for his sharp political instincts, making him an invaluable adviser to his masters. A decade ago, it was his exceptional ‘‘handling of files’’ that helped Mulayam negotiate the multi-crore Ayurveda scandal, also scrutinised by the CBI. For Mayawati, Punia was a sort of resident intellectual, transforming inchoate ideas to concrete pro-Dalit schemes. Caste affinity must have helped. Punia is a Dalit too, though not from Uttar Pradesh. His brother resigned from the IAS to contest elections and even became a minister in Haryana. There is a perception Punia will take the same route, that Mayawati will send him to the Rajya Sabha after he retires from the civil service. Right now he has to work out his equations with Mulayam. It shouldn’t be difficult. Punia’s artist wife Indira has held exhibitions in the state and national capitals. In 1995, during Mulayam’s term, some of her work was bought by the Uttar Pradesh government. These paintings now lie - now rot, some would say - in the guest house built by Mulayam in Saifai, his native village in Etawah district. Indira Punia, it may be appropriate to mention is a member of the state women’s commission, with a rank equal to a minister’s. That speaks volumes for the lady; it speaks whole encyclopedias for her husband’s clout
