Operation Damage Control

Lucknow: With her name being projected as the Third Fronts prime ministerial candidate,Chief Minister Mayawati was banking on Uttar Pradesh to deliver the votes. But the Bahujan Samaj Party BSP managed to win just 20 seats in the state. In the 10 days since the poll results were announced,Mayawati has gone into overdrive to revive both the party organisation and the governments performance.

The government

amp;149;Soon after the results were announced,the Mayawati government reinstated IAS officer Kunwar Fateh Bahadur as Principal Secretary Home. Bahadur was earlier shunted out on the Election Commissions directives. Bahadur also holds additional charge as Principal Secretary Appointment. While the Home department has control of the IPS cadre,the Appointment department handles the IAS cadre.

amp;149;About 40 IPS officers,including police chiefs of 22 districts,and 22 IAS officers,with 13 district magistrates among them,were shunted out. Both the DM and SP of Mainpuri,from where Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav won the elections,were removed. While District Magistrate Ministhy S,who made news after she claimed she was threatened by Mulayam during the run-up to the polls,was made Special Secretary in the office of the Agricultural Production Commissioner,SP Ajay Mishra was put under suspension.

amp;149;Tightening her grip on the Chief Ministers Office,Mayawati reviewed development projects and asked the Chief Secretary to undertake a tour of the state to check on their progress.

amp;149;Her next move was to check the alleged transfer-posting industry,stopping ministers and top bureaucrats from making any postings before sending the relevant files to her.

amp;149;She has directed her ministers to identify the goondas and mafia who manage to grab tenders for development projects. She also directed her officers to put special focus on pro-people schemes like the PDS system and scholarships for poor students.

The party

amp;149;Mayawati called a meeting of her party MLAs and ministers to analyse the poll results. She also had a one-to-one meeting with all of them.

amp;149;The post of mandal prabhari divisional in-charge within the party has been abolished. The mandal prabharis job was to ensure coordination between the party MLAs and the organisation.

amp;149;Making changes in the organisational structure,Mayawati has drafted in senior party leaders to take charge of different zones. For instance,Ram Achal Rajbhar,who used to look after the partys affairs in Uttarakhand,has been given the Varanasi zone. Similarly,R K Kushwaha and Jugul Kishore have been put in charge of Lucknow and Allahabad zones respectively.

amp;149;All the chairpersons,vice-chairpersons and members of the state governments various boards,corporations and commissions were ordered to sign their resignation letters. These posts had been given to party leaders,each of whom was made responsible for some Lok Sabha constituencies. Having failed to deliver votes,they now face Mayawatis ire.

amp;149;The BSP has decided to revamp the party at the ground level. So,all the party committees at the level of the districts and Assemblies have been dissolved. Mayawati has also dissolved all the Bhaichara Committees across the state.

amp;149;At the national level,efforts are on to identify the party cadres who opposed the BSPs official nominees in different constituencies. Two MLAs in Uttarakhand Choudhari Yashvir Singh and Kazi Mohammed Nizamuddin have already been suspended for anti-party activities. Both the MLAs had allegedly campaigned against the BSPs official nominee in Hardwar.

Red flags over land acquisition

Subrata Nagchoudhury

Kolkata: With the CPIM coming under fire from its allies in the Left Front,and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee facing flak,the Bengal government is on the backfoot.

amp;149;At its first Cabinet meeting after the poll results,the West Bengal government decided not to go ahead with a proposal to acquire 120 acres of land in Kharagpur,where a city centre was to come up. Buddhadeb told the Cabinet that the proposal should be kept on hold as land has become a sensitive issue. He also advised scrutiny of the nature of the land proposed to be acquired as well as employment generation potential of the project.

amp;149;The Land Use Board,which was under the state Commerce and Industries Department headed by Nirupam Sen,has been allotted to the Land and Land Reforms Department headed by Rezzak Mollah. Within the CPIM,Mollah is known for his vocal opposition to the proposed industrial projects on agricultural land. By handing over responsibility of the Land Use Board to Mollah,Buddhadeb may be sending a signal that the government would not pursue its earlier aggressive policy of industrialisation by acquiring farmland.

amp;149;The state Finance Department has withdrawn disciplinary proceedings against three state government employees who were accused of manhandling a secretary in his office at the state secretariat in February,2009. The offenders belonged to a union that was opposed to the CPIM-backed coordination committee. By going back on the disciplinary proceedings against the three workers,the government indicated that it was avoiding a confrontation with the employees. The coordination committee,the CPIM-backed employees association at the state secretariat,has already suffered much erosion in its ranks. One indication was the celebration in the corridors of Writers Building after the poll results were declared.