From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 8, Issue 44, Dated 05 Nov 2011
CURRENT AFFAIRS
UP LOKAYUKTA
As graft charges surge, Maya wonders whom to field in 2012
Many MLAs have been indicted by the courts or by the Lokayukta,
reports Virendra Nath Bhatt
Heavy workload Lokayukta Justice Mehrotra's office has been flooded
with complaints
Photo: Pramod Adhikari
LOKAYUKTA OF Uttar Pradesh Justice (retd) NK Mehrotra is perhaps the
most overburdened ombudsman in India. His office is flooded with
complaints of corruption, particularly amassing of assets and landgrab
by ministers of the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, MLAs and other ruling
party leaders. Many complainants prefer to remain anonymous, fearing
reprisals by goons of the ruling party.
Mayawati
Tough times Mayawati is having to bow to the anti-graft mood of voters
all over the country
How Mayawati sweetened the sugar mill deal for a liquor don
Will Lokayukta report take down CM?
Maya needs to walk about
ANANT KUMAR MISRA
Anant Kumar Mishra
Kanpur
Inducted as health minister without being elected, he resigned on
'moral grounds' after three doctors died
AVADHPAL
Avadhpal Singh Yadav
Etah
Son of a ganglord, he was politically useful as he hailed from the
Yadav heartland but is now out in the cold
BABU SINGH KUSHWAHA
Babu Singh Kushwaha
Bundelkhand
Mayawati's private secretary for over a decade, he handled health and
mining till the NRHM scam
BADSHAH SINGH
Badshah Singh
Mahoba
He debuted in 1991 on a ticket given by BJP's Uma Bharti, now he faces
half-a-dozen criminal charges
RAJESH TRIPATHI
Rajesh Tripathi
Gorakhpur
An NGO controlled by him was indicted for extortions at a crematorium
but he will still contest
Rangnath_Mishra
Rangnath Mishra
Auraiya
The Lokayukta recommended a detailed probe by the CBI into his Rs 200
crore wealth
Asked to explain the surge in complaints, Mehrotra says, "There are
several reasons for that: the Right to Information Act, subsequent
rise in awareness among the masses and media coverage. Last but not
least is the prompt action taken by Mayawati on my reports against her
ministers. All this has emboldened the people to speak up against
corruption in areas affecting their daily lives."
One such complaint said a minister, who hails from a humble
background, today owns assets worth several hundred crores. Another
minister has purchased several hundred acres in the name of his
servants, family members and other associates, while one minister is
said to have acquired huge assets in Maharashtra and a big farmhouse
in his home district.
In October, Chief Minister Mayawati asked three ministers to resign
following the report of the Lokayukta indicting them. Now Mehrotra is
examining complaints against other ministers, but is reluctant to
reveal names. "I am conducting preliminary inquiries. In some cases, I
have asked for filing of the complaint in the prescribed format and
also putting allegations on affidavit,'' said the Lokayukta.
Even UP Director General of Police Brij Lal is under a cloud — he is
accused of misappropriating over Rs 1,200 crore collected by deducting
Rs 25 per month from the salaries of over 3.87 lakh police personnel.
The complainant, a police constable who has since been dismissed from
service, alleges there is no trace of the funds collected in this way
for the welfare of police personnel.
Mayawati has had no choice but to deny tickets to tainted party MLAs
for the 2012 Assembly polls in the hope of stemming the tide of
surging anti-incumbency. Ironically, when she rode the crest of a
similar wave against the then Mulayam Singh Yadav government in May
2007, Mayawati promised to end the 'goonda raj' of the Samajwadi Party
regime and put its top leaders behind bars.
It was much more than the magical formula of Dalit-Muslim-Brahmin that
earned the BSP supremo her landslide victory in the 2007 Assembly
polls. Behind her winning social engineering concept was the might of
over 132 handpicked ganglords from the UP badlands. The electorate
sent 70 of them to the Assembly, giving Mayawati one of her best wins.
Many were rewarded with Cabinet berths and top posts at state bodies.
But the honeymoon did not last and soon the strongmen — or Bahubalis,
as they are called in the local dialect — started giving everyone a
headache.
Several MLAs indulged in brazen acts of violation of the law while
Mayawati herself seemed preoccupied, indulging her obsession with
parks, statues and memorials of Dalit icons. But then their names
cropped up in murder cases. Shekhar Tewari was convicted for life by a
sessions court in the murder of the executive engineer of Auraiya in
December 2008. BSP minister Anand Sen Yadav was also convicted by the
Faizabad sessions court in a murder case. Jamuna Prasad, another
minister, was sacked in 2008 after his name figured in the murder of a
police constable in Gorakhpur district.
So far, eight ministers have been sacked. Those most recently shown
the door after their indictment by the Lokayukta are Rangnath Mishra,
Badshah Singh and Avadhpal Singh Yadav. In December last year,
minister of state Rajesh Tripathi was removed after his indictment by
the Lokayukta over extortion from a crematorium in Gorakhpur district.
Rural Development Minister Daddu Prasad was accused of sexual
exploitation of women in his home district Banda. The personal
assistant of the minister has been arrested while Mayawati has given a
clean chit to the minister.
The Lokayukta has complaints against as many as four ministers —
Finance Minister Lalji Verma, Energy Minister Ramveer Upadhaya,
Horticulture Minister Narayan Singh and minister of state Ratan Lal
Ahirwar — on counts of corruption filed by individuals and political
parties.
Mayawati has so far denied tickets to 29 sitting MLAs, including four
ministers, eight of them from the Scheduled Castes. (The BSP has 223
MLAs in the Assembly after four were disqualified for defecting to
other parties.) Unlike other parties, the BSP does not formally
announce its candidates or the changes in its list — such changes are
usually made public at the local level by district and zonal
coordinators of the party. Sources said more changes are likely in the
coming days. "Party coordinators are still collecting ground-level
information on the winning potential of sitting MLAs and the party
chief Mayawati is in direct touch with them," said a party leader.
"Although the ministers, who have been sacked, met our national
president Mayawati and claimed that they had been targeted by their
political rivals, she decided to remove them till the charges are
proved wrong," says Swami Prasad Maurya, state president of the BSP.
"The CM had also ordered a vigilance inquiry against Badshah Singh and
Awadh Pal Singh Yadav," says Maurya. "Yadav was removed from the post
of dairy development and animal husbandry minister last month after
the Lokayukta found him guilty of misusing department funds and
favouring his son. He was also alleged to have grabbed gram sabha
land.''
The ministers sacked on the report of the Lokayukta are obviously
jittery and term the ombudsman report as hasty and one-sided. "The
Lokayukta took cognisance of the complaint by a tainted MLA of the
Samajwadi Party, Vijay Mishra, against me and Rakesh Dhar Tripathi. He
is our political rival and his complaint was politically motivated,''
says Rangnath Mishra, former minister for secondary education, adding,
"The SP MLA is still in jail."
The Lokayukta says these charges are untenable, as "It's the stock
reply of every minister that the complainant is a criminal, a tainted
person, or a political rival. It's beyond my jurisdiction to examine
the conduct and the character of the complainant since he/she is not a
public servant. My job is to examine the conduct of the public servant
against whom charges of misconduct and corruption have been levelled.
Here are some of the tainted leaders:
Rangnath Mishra
Mishra, minister for secondary education, was found guilty of amassing
assets disproportionate to his known sources of income to the tune of
Rs 200 crore. The Lokayukta recommended a detailed investigation by
the CBI. Five-time MLA from Auraiya Assembly seat in Sant Ravidas
Nagar district, he was twice elected to the Assembly on a BJP ticket,
and was a minister in BJP regimes led by Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath
Singh. Mayawati has denied him a ticket for the 2012 Assembly polls.
Badshah Singh
A confidant of Uma Bharti, Badshah Singh was elected to the Assembly
for the first time in 1991 on a BJP ticket. A muscleman of Mahoba in
Bundelkhand, the sacked minister has over half-a-dozen criminal cases
against him. The Lokayukta report has charged him with grabbing gram
sabha land.
The minister besides having huge stakes in contract business in PWD,
irrigation and other engineering departments, has huge assets in
neighbouring Panna district of Madhya Pradesh. Badshah Singh has also
been denied the BSP ticket for 2012 Assembly polls. Mayawati has
ordered an inquiry by the state vigilance department against the
sacked minister.
Mayawati has so far denied tickets to 29 sitting MLAs, only eight of
whom are Scheduled Castes
Avadhpal Singh Yadav
Son of the former MLA and notorious ganglord of Etah district, Laturi
Singh, Yadav was minister for animal husbandry and dairy development.
Interestingly, he was a Cabinet minister in the first Mayawatiled
government in 1995 and 12 years later in 2007, was made minister of
state with independent charge. He was politically useful for the BSP
since he comes from the Yadav heartland of western UP, considered the
stronghold of the Samajwadi Party. He was sacked after his indictment
by the Lokayukta on charges of financial irregularities. At the behest
of the minister, his son was given the contract of construction of
veterinary hospitals in Etah and other places in the state. The
minister was also accused of running a bootlegging racket in the
district. He too has been denied the BSP ticket for 2012 polls.
Rajesh Tripathi
First elected to the Assembly in 2007 on a BSP ticket, Rajesh
Tripathi, minister of state for homoeopathy, a greenhorn in politics,
was indicted by the Lokayukta for alleged extortions by the NGO
controlled by the minister. The NGO runs a crematorium on the banks of
the Saryu river in Gorakhpur district. The Lokayukta had said in his
inquiry report that either the minister should resign from the NGO or
leave the ministry. Mayawati chose to sack him from the council of
ministers. Tripathi has, however, been lucky to get the party ticket
for the 2012 assembly polls.
Mayawati had vowed to end the goonda raj of the Samajwadi Party but
relied on the same kind of strongmen
Anant Kumar Mishra
A native of Kanpur, formerly with the BJP, he switched sides ahead of
the 2007 polls. He did not contest the 2007 Assembly polls, yet he was
inducted as health minister thanks to his proximity to Satish Chandra
Mishra, Rajya Sabha MP and Brahmin mascot of the BSP, who had
spearheaded the campaign ahead of the 2007 Assembly polls to bring
Brahmins into the BSP fold and later became Mayawati's righthand man.
Later, in August 2007, Anant Mishra contested the election from
Farrukhabad and won. Known to be one of the most notorious ministers
the health department has seen in the past five decades, Mishra will
be remembered for his ruthlessness for extortion and garnering
kickbacks in all the deals of purchase of equipment, medicine and
transfer and postings of doctors. He was said to be involved in a
running battle with Babu Singh Kushwaha, minister for family welfare,
over sharing the spoils from NRHM (National Rural Health Mission)
funds. He had to resign after the murder of two chief medical officers
and later the death of deputy CMO Dr YS Sachan. Mayawati claimed that
he has resigned on moral grounds in April this year. With the CBI
probing the NRHM scam and death of three doctors, Mishra is said to be
busy in pilgrimage, visiting holy places of all faiths, perhaps hoping
God can change his luck.
Babu Singh Kushwaha
A native of Bundelkhand belonging to a numerically significant OBC
caste and confidant of BSP national president, Kushwaha has worked as
private secretary to Mayawati for over a decade. As a member of the
State Legislative Council, he never contested the Assembly election
and was the key man in the innermost circle of political persons
looking after the important affairs of the party. Kushwaha resigned
along with Anant Mishra on 'moral grounds' in April. Besides the
family welfare department, he looked after the key portfolio of
minerals and mining. It was Kushwaha who looked after the
'contribution' from owners of stone-crushing factories, stone mine
lease-holders and contractors for Yamuna sand in Bundelkhand region.
Kushwaha had to resign once he became a hot potato for Mayawati after
the death of Dr Sachan. UP government claimed that he had committed
suicide but the CBI investing the case has established that Dr Sachan
was murdered.
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