Mature Mayawati Brings Back Her Old Team

It is the same old team, but a more sober Mayawati. The Chief Minister has reposed faith in her earlier team of bureaucrats, giving key positions to officers who manned her secretariat last time. But there is some evidence that she is not as headstrong as she was before, and is open to reason.

PL Punia has returned as principal secretary and he brought back his old team, with two exceptions Anil Swarup and Aradhana Johari. Punia reportedly was not keen on the job, but was made to accept it. But the other two asked for other slots. The rest of the team is the same, Rohit Nandan is again the director of information and Kashmira Singh the DIG of Lucknow.

 

She wanted Ram Kumar, accused of having a hand in the transfer controversy during Mayawatis earlier stint, to be given the post of appointments secretary. Sources said Mayawati agreed to the suggestion that it was better not to give him the post. There was palpable relief at this in the bureaucracy. Kumar had to contend with the post of registrar of societies.

The Chief Minister called back Harish Chandra Gupta as secretary, home. Gupta is regarded a nice man and does not have strong opinions either way.

Tmmediately after taking the oath, the BSP and BJP leaders reiterated their ideological commitments symbolically. The former garlanded the statue of Ambedkar and the latter went to Ayodhya to reiterate the pledge of constructing a Ram Temple.

The opposition is waiting for the next step of the government especially its intentions to review the cases against Mulayam Singh. But there are certain constraints. Both in the state guest house incidents and in the Muzaffarnagar incident of 1994, some people close to Mayawati are involved.

DIG Bua Singh is the main culprit in the Muzaffarnagar case. He is close to Mayawati.

Punia has been mentioned in the Ramesh Chandra report on the state guest house incidents. Neera Yadav had obliged Mayawati as well by allotting plots to her brothers.

From March 27th, when the full fledged ministry will be formed, the governments actions will be watched on these issues.