'Tainted' officials get the boot as Kalyan vows to end corruption

By transferring 188 IAS and IPS officers within his first 13 days in office, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh has sparked rumours that he was out to repeat his predecessor Mayawati's all-time record of shifting 1419 senior officials during her six-month rule.

Scotching the rumours, Kalyan Singh said the idea was to ''clean up'' and ''tone up'' the state administration. He vowed to end UP's notorious ''transfer industry''.

''The exercise has affected barely 30 per cent of the state's 83 districts and just about 20 per cent of the secretariat administration,'' said state Chief Secretary R S Mathur.

Percentages apart, there is little doubt that Kalyan Singh's transfers singled out Mayawati's favourites who were allegedly running errands for the Bahujan Samaj Party leader. ''But that is not the chief minister's intention,'' said a government spokesman. ''Kalyan Singh's top priority is to refurbish the UP government's image which has taken a battering due to rampant corruption at various levels.''

The claim is substantiated by the fact that important portfolios have been shifted from the corrupt to those known for their honesty and integrity. ''Now, what can he do if, in the bargain, some of the former chief minister's blue-eyed officers have been hit,'' said the spokesman.

Thus, a bureaucrat, who held the second most important bureaucratic assignment under Mayawati, has been shifted to a low-key job. On the other hand, officials with a ''squeaky clean image'' have been given ''lucrative'' posts, like, for instance, dynamic woman IAS officer Neeta Chaudhary. The official, who was shunted to an insignificant post by the Mayawati government, is now the state Industrial Investment Corporation's managing director.

Another tough and upright officer, Dinesh Singh, who was hounded out for his honesty by the Mayawati regime, has now been made director of the Mandi Parishad.

Similarly, Brijesh Kumar, who was given an ''innocuous posting'' after his return from deputation as Air-India managing director, is the new principal secretary, industrial development.

What is more, for a change, the list does not reflect any caste bias that one would have expected in a Bharatiya Janata Party-led government.

Kalyan Singh has taken care to ensure that dalit officers with a clean image remained in important positions, including planning department in charge Shambhu Nath. Even the state's police chief is a dalit officer who is known for his impeccable record.

As a result, Mayawati could not condemn her successor over the transfer issue. Her trusted lieutenant and Co-operation Minister R K Chaudhary, however, tried to raise a ''timid protest'' about the ''sidelining'' of dalit officials.

''Chaudhary is making unsubstantiated allegations. Let him come up with specific examples,'' said a senior BJP leader.

As for Chaudhary's objections to suspended Ghaziabad police chief Arun Kumar's reinstatement, they are not tenable as the official is widely known to be a victim of Mayawati's wrath -- he reportedly defied her arbitrary orders.

Significantly, this is the first time in recent years that the state IAS Association has formally welcomed the chief minister's campaign against their corrupt colleagues, against whom the association itself had been waging a futile battle for long.

The Kalyan Singh government also lodged first information reports against a couple of IAS and provincial civil service officers, allegedly involved in major financial irregularities. Some of these officials had also faced income tax raids, which unearthed wealth and assets to the tune of millions.

In his personal secretariat too, Kalyan Singh has taken care to rope in officials who could call a spade a spade. And the only one of that breed in the Mayawati regime, D K Kotia has been retained by the chief minister.

All this has left Mayawati at her wit's end, forcing the former chief minister and her mentor Kanshi Ram to stress the need for periodical coordination committee meetings between the two coalition partners. ''The BSP never thought of calling such meetings when Mayawati was ruling the roost,'' said state BJP chief Raj Nath Singh. ''But now that our chief minister is taking certain decisions, it irks her.''

The BJP, however, has called a coordination committee meeting on October 12, which will be attended, among others, by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati, and Kalyan Singh.

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