Posts Tagged ‘Shivraj Singh Chauhan’
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Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been adroitly using the judicial inquiry to evade action where action is required. It serves in two ways. It assuages the hurt of the victims of a mishap, particularly if it is the result of the dereliction of duty on the part of the bureaucrats. Secondly, Chouhan earns the gratitude of the errant bureaucrats by not taking action against them even if they are indicted by the judicial commission. Hence Chouhan’s prompt announcement of a judicial inquiry into the Petlawad (Jhabua) blast which killed over 90 persons and injured over 100 others.
A stampede at Ratangarh temple in Datia district in October 2006 had resulted in the death of 50 devotees. The judicial commission appointed by Chouhan squarely held the Collector and the Superintendent of Police responsible for the tragedy. Chouhan took no action against them nor did he act on the commission’s recommendations for avoiding such occurrences in future. A similar tragedy at the same temple took place in October 2013 and this time the death toll reached 115. Chouhan instituted another judicial inquiry. This time, though, he ordered suspension of the Collector and the Police Superintendent as it was the election year. Needless to say the recommendations of the judicial commission in the Second Ratangarh tragedy were also ignored like the recommendations of the commission in the First Ratangarh tragedy. Suspension in such cases is quietly revoked after some time.
The tragedy on September 12 in the small town of Petlawad could have been easily avoided if the officials from the district level to the State level had cared for the concerns of the people. The law does not permit storage of explosives in a residential area but here the explosives were kept in a house at the centre of Petlawad town. Moreover, as The Indian Express revealed, owner of the explosives store Rajendra Kasawa did not even have a licence to store or sell the explosives. Kasawa has only a ‘Shot Firer’s Certificate’ that allows the holder to undertake blasting work in connection with well sinking, road construction and agricultural work, among other things. The holder of this certificate is not authorised to store even one gram of explosives.
The residents of Petlawad have been complaining to the district administration about the storage of the explosives in the residential areas but the district administration always ignored the complaints. State’s Home Minister Babulal Gaur, who was the first government functionary to reach the site of the tragedy, observed that a series of violations had been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business had been flourishing for long. said a series of violations have been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business was flourishing since long time. a series of violations have been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business was flourishing since long time. “There should be a regular three-month check of stock register and magazine depot where gelatin and other explosives were stored and obtained by the licensee which in this case was found absent”, said a series of violations have been found in storing and selling explosives in Jhabua district where mining business was flourishing since long time. The tragedy is that the State’s Home Minister can only whimper and has no power to take action against any one.
If Chouhan were honest in his intentions, he should have gone for a prompt police or CBI inquiry as it is a clear case of criminal activity. But an honest Chouhan would not have presided over the Vyapam scam which ruined the careers of thousands of young girls and boys in the State.
Curious case of Raghavji
Posted on: August 13, 2013
Miasma shrouds the episode involving former Madhya Pradesh finance minister Raghavji. It is unlikely that it will ever be lifted.
Raghavji’s domestic help files a complaint at Habibganj police station in Bhopal accusing Raghavji of having sodomised him over a long period with the promise of a government job. He also submits a compact disc (CD) in evidence. Raghavji is asked by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to resign from the cabinet immediately and the resignation letter is promptly submitted to the Governor for acceptance. An FIR is registered two days later in the police station. He is expelled from the primary membership of the BJP. He is arrested, sent to judicial custody and his bail plea opposed and rejected. All accomplished at a record speed within a week — between July 5 and 12.
That’s not all. The 79-year-old former minister, suffering from a host of ailments, is treated like a dreaded criminal. He is not allowed to pick up his medicines when he is taken away by the police from a relative’s flat at Koh-e-Fiza locality. Lodged at the central jail under judicial custody, he complains of weak digestion and asks for khichdi in the evening but is denied. Then mind, he is not yet convicted, not even charge-sheeted or under trial, but only detained till the police complete their investigation and prepare the charge-sheet. Apparently, someone wielding power in the government must be acting with vengeance.
Still more: it’s only a week after registering the FIR and taking Raghavji into custody that the police wonder about the authenticity of the CD and send it to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CSFL) in Hyderabad for examination.
A CD showing Raghavji in a compromising position with a woman was reported two years ago also but the chief minister had got the whole thing suppressed before the CD could reach the hands of a Congress leader. The person behind the preparation of the CD had shown it to the Congress leader and promised him a copy. The Congress leader had in his enthusiasm told media persons at Vidisha, Raghavji’s home town and Assembly constituency, that he would throw a bombshell in the next few days. The CD and the man behind it were promptly taken care of by the chief minister. Why did the CM act differently now?
Several theories are being floated for the downfall of Raghavji, who is one of the oldest activists of the Sangh Parivar. He had joined the RSS during his student days, was associated with the efforts to build up Jana Sangh in Madhya Bharat (roughly the Malwa region of present Madhya Pradesh) in the early 1950s, has held important positions in the organisation, represented the party both in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and had been finance minister since 2003 when the BJP came to power. Earlier this year he presented the tenth annual budget estimates in a row.
Some in the ruling party blame the liquor lobby for working against Raghavji (he held the excise portfolio also). That, prima facie, is aimed at diverting the attention. First, no other excise minister has pampered the liquor lobby as Raghavji has done; how he had been mismanaging the excise revenue to benefit those engaged in liquor trade is chronicled by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in his reports. Secondly, if under pressure from the liquor lobby or any other group of vested interests, the CM had the option to change Raghavji’s portfolio.
Another theory doing the rounds is that the CM himself is behind Raghavji’s disgrace. When Chauhan became CM in 2005, he was a member of Lok Sabha from Vidisha. He wanted to field his wife Sadhna Singh in the by-election caused by his resignation to contest for the Assembly. However, Sushma Swaraj jumped in and he had to comply with the party’s wishes to leave the Vidisha Lok Sabha seat for her. Now he is said to be planning to field his wife for the Assembly from Vidisha seat which is at present held by Raghavji. This, too, is not very convincing because Raghavji has for some time been saying that he may not be contesting the next Assembly election. Besides, on learning of the presence of the CD, Chauhan could have quietly asked Raghavji to resign (possibly on health grounds) and asked him to lie low for some time. This could have saved the embarrassment to the party as well as to him.
Yet another theory being floated is about the conspiracy to embarrass the CM himself on the eve of the Assembly elections (due by November). A day after Raghavji’s domestic help went to the police station with the CD, BJP leader Shivshankar Pateria told media persons that he had prepared the CD submitted by the domestic help to the police. He also claimed that he had prepared 22 CDs of Raghavji sodomising his domestic help. Once a close associate of Uma Bharti, Pateria had, after Uma’s expulsion from the BJP, become quite friendly with several party leaders, Raghavji included. In all probability, Pateria is merely a front. He has since been suspended from the party (not expelled like Raghavji).
The suspicion lies with a combination of powerful party functionaries, one set having grudge against Raghavji because of local politics of Vidisha district and the other trying to settle score with the CM for some hurt. This speaks for the clout of the cabal that the whole thing was so thrust upon Chauhan that he was forced to act in panic (he always acts in panic when faced with a crisis situation). Raghavji has also hinted at a conspiracy within the BJP. The moot point is: will he speak out, or more importantly, will he be allowed to? Apparently, this was not the only skeleton in his cupboard.
(Raghavji was granted bail by the Madhya Pradesh High Court on August 12, 34 days after his incarceration)
The Madhya Pradesh government has once again increased by one year the tenure of the Kochar Commission inquiring into various aspects of the Bhopal gas leak disaster of 1984. The Commission was constituted in August 2010. Its working in the last two years suggests only one thing: chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan wanted to oblige S L Kochar by providing him a sinecure for some favour done by him either as lawyer or a member of the judiciary.
The farcical June 7, 2010 judgement of the Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) handed down to the disaster accused by treating them like VVIPs in the court and bailing them out in the same breath in which the two-year prison term was announced gave the wily Chauhan the idea of setting up the Commission for Kochar who was not even retired by then. The Commission started functioning nearly a year after the chief minister’s announcement to constitute it.
The terms of reference announced by the government were laudable enough: the commission was asked to inquire if the rules and regulations were complied with while setting up the Union Carbide plant, if adequate measures were taken by Union Carbide to prevent mishaps, and if adequate safety measures were installed by Union Carbide for the disposal of the hazardous waste after the 1984 disaster. More importantly, the Commission would inquire into the role of the State government (then headed by Arjun Singh) and others in the arrest, release and in providing safe passage to Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson, and any other matter arising out of or incidental to these issues.
Had Kochar been honest about his assignment, he would have first tried to procure the documents collected by the first judicial commission which then chief minister Arjun Singh had constituted to assuage the worldwide outrage over the disaster. Once the public anger had subsided, the judicial commission was wound up. But in the eight or nine months that the commission was functional, it was said to have collected documents running into thousands of pages from various parties involved, including the statement of the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), the subsidiary of the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), which was directly responsible for operating the pesticide plant in Bhopal.
Kochar did not even show the honesty to take up, at least so far, the first part of the terms of reference, that is, if the rules and regulations were complied with while setting up the Union Carbide plant and if adequate measures were taken by Union Carbide to prevent mishaps and also for the disposal of the hazardous waste. While the US courts have dealt at length with how the Union Carbide Corporation had chosen to opt for substandard safety measure for its Bhopal plant in contrast with the first class technology used at its Virginia plant, not much has been revealed about the compliance of rules and regulations in setting up the Bhopal plant. Kochar, it seems, was wary of antagonising some powerful politicians and bureaucrats who had gone out of their way to help the Union Carbide executives.
A senior bureaucrat (now retired) had, for instance, ordered removal of all factories and commercial activities including such as vehicle repair workshop, saw machines, and dairies from the Chhola area of Bhopal as it was strictly a residential area. The same bureaucrat in his dual capacity as the Director of Town and Country Planning and the Administrator of Bhopal Municipal Corporation had granted special permission, in July 1973, to Union Carbide to set up in the same area the pesticide plant which was the source of the havoc in 1984. The bureaucrat, once virtually the hatchet man of Arjun Singh, is now considered close to the BJP and RSS leaders.
The Commission has only been wasting its time in the Warren Anderson saga about which hardly any new fact is likely to emerge as too much has already come out in newspapers, in courts and otherwise. Some of the key factors involved, like Rajiv Gandhi and Arjun Singh, are no more. Others, like then Bhopal Collector Moti Singh and Police Superintendent Swaraj Puri, have either deposed before courts or given out their versions in various interviews. Moti Singh has even written a book detailing his role in the so-called arrest and release of Anderson. Kochar is biding his time by listening to the depositions of Swaraj Puri, Moti Singh and smaller fries who were on duty at the time. He even went to the absurdity of issuing a notice to Warren Anderson asking him to travel from his quiescence in the US to Bhopal to depose before the Kochar Commission working from a small house in a little known locality. At one stage, Kochar even bullied the Bhopal CJM to get unauthorisedly the original file of the proceedings in an on-going Warren Anderson-related case.
One does not expect that the Kochar Commission will be able to unravel any new facts about the arrival, arrest, release and ceremonial departure of Warren Anderson. All it can do is to give a new lease of life to the controversy later this year when the Assembly elections are due and Shivraj Singh Chauhan will be seeking the third term in office.
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Madhya Pradesh governor Ram Naresh Yadav, who has kept State Congress leaders in perpetual despondency by his bonhomie with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, has sprung a surprise by directing him to keep a check on the anarchic Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists. They are indulging in unlawful activities and polluting the academic atmosphere in the State, the Governor’s stern letter to the CM says.
The immediate provocation for the Governor’s ire was the recent incidents of rowdyism by the ABVP activists on the Bhoj University campus. The Governor has created a real problem for Chauhan who is terribly afraid of the ABVP activists.
Chauhan had virtually lost his sleep when six hard-core ABVP activists were arrested for the murder of Ujjain Professor H S Sabharwal. The chief minister had a 20-minute one-to-one talk with Vimal Tomar, one of the six accused then in police custody. Chauhan had then allowed the police and forensic investigations subverted to ensure acquittal of the ABVP leaders.
As the witnesses (even the policemen who were eye-witnesses) started turning hostile, the murdered Professor’s son Himanshu knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court. A division bench comprising Arijit Payasat and D K Jain stayed the proceedings in the Ujjain court and asked the BJP government of the State, through its counsel: “What action have you taken against those police officers who resiled from their earlier statements? Would not the trial be a mockery if your police officers turned hostile? Our anxiety is that every police officer will be given a clean chit. We have seen what has happened in the Best Bakery case.”
If Chauhan did not care for the Supreme Court, will he care for the Governor’s direction, one wonders.
BJP’s two faces on CAG report
Posted on: December 22, 2012
The sanctity of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports for the BJP depends upon whether the party is in power or in opposition. At the Centre the BJP is in opposition and it not only insists on a discussion on CAG reports but stalls Parliament to have its way. In Madhya Pradesh the party is in power and so its approach is different.
When the opposition Congress sought a discussion on the CAG report in the Assembly on Thursday, Speaker Ishwardas Rohani said that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is constituted to specifically examine the CAG report. The not-so-vigorous demand by the Opposition members had little effect on the attitude of the Speaker or the treasury benches. The House, though, had to be adjourned for a brief period a couple of times. The CAG report for Madhya Pradesh for the year, ended March 2011, was placed in the House earlier in the week.
The reluctance of the BJP government to discuss the CAG report in the House can have only one reason. The report exposes the arbitrary manner in which the Government has been conducting its business, little caring for the lapses pointed out by the CAG in various works. The CAG report says that the authorities are required to comply with the observations contained in the inspection reports, promptly rectify the defects/omissions and report their compliance to the Auditors “within four weeks of their receipt”. As of June 30, 2011, 12.737 inspection reports were outstanding against civil departments of the State. Of these, 7102 were pending for more than five years.
Rs 4000 crore loss
The report estimates a loss of over Rs 4000 crore to the exchequer because of the wrong-doings of the State government. Perhaps the most arbitrary decisions were taken by the government in the matters of acquisition and allotment of lands.
The land has been chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s first love and he has been obliging his friends and party men generously. At least in one case, his government had committed a fraud by seeking objections (as required under the law) for different khasra numbers while actually acquiring land with different khasra numbers. He had almost allotted this prime land on the banks of river Narmada to his party colleague and Rajya Sabha member Anil Madhav Dave but for the ruckus created by a minister at the cabinet meeting. The chief minister had to hurriedly cancel the allotment process. The minister was, naturally, thrown out of the cabinet and later he quit the party also.
CAG notes that centralised database on acquisition of private land, payment of compensation to land losers, custody and allotment of government land had not been maintained at the State level. The Government has not prescribed a uniform and transparent method for calculation of market value of land. CAG noticed that market value of land was prima facie erroneously determined by different methods leading to under-assessment of compensation of Rs 6.91 crore in 46 cases and excess payment of compensation of Rs 12.76 crore in 23 cases.
“Avoidable expenditure” of Rs 5.88 crore was incurred on payment of additional compensation due to delay, from one to 22 months, in passing award.
Similarly, there was no comprehensive and transparent policy for allotment of Government land which would have facilitated equal opportunity to every desirable entity. “Substantial revenue of Rs 33.66 crore was lost” due to allotment of Government land to different bodies and organisations at lower rates in contravention of the prescribed provisions. Realisation of revenue was withheld due to absence of time limit for finalisation of lease cases in case of advance possession and initiating recovery proceedings against the defaulters.
CAG finds the management of Government land also “poor”. It says that land measuring 1979.594 hectares, acquired by Industry Department, was not utilised for industrial development. No periodic physical verification of Government lands was conducted as required. In four districts, 171.076 hectares of Government land was not utilised by the allottees for purposes mentioned in allotment orders and no action was taken to resume the lands. In 12 test-checked districts, 13152 encroachment cases were not finalised.
The absence of consolidated details of Government land allotted/leased at the apex level was, according to the CAG report, attributed by the revenue department (which is the modal department for the purpose) to non-submission of monthly progress report of land acquired and allotted in the district by the district revenue authorities in spite of repeated instructions issued by the department. It is apparent that the department has not attached due seriousness to “non-availability of such vital information and its negative impact on governance in a sensitive and people-centric matter like land”. The CAG noted the absence of a “rational policy” for allotment of Government land.
In the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the CAG found underutilisation of the funds, provided by the Centre in its implementation. The targets, too, had not been achieved. It says that till March 2011, the Government of India had sanctioned Rs 9989.84 crore under the PMGSY and the State government was able to spend only Rs 7136.30 crore. The PMGSY is a 100 per cent centrally funded programme.
The programme envisaged provision of rural road connectivity to 8459 villages in the State by construction of 37,021 km all-weather black topped roads. Against a target of 8459 roads, only 6229 roads were constructed as of 2010-11. The Audit report specifically notes that the planning for the road work was deficient. Approved road lengths were reduced by 557.84 km resulting in excess drawl of Central assistance under PMGSY to the extent of Rs 103.20 crore. Expenditure on 42 “partially constructed roads and substantially abandoned roads” led to a wasteful expenditure of Rs 1.60 crore. There was excess payment of Rs 6.99 crore to the contractors due to inflated measurement of work done. Besides, Rs 54.61 crore was pending recovery against several contractors. There was violation of contractual provisions by way of non-insurance of roads, resulting in undue financial aid of Rs 1.19 crore to the contractors.
Bhopal ‘gas widows’ live here
Posted on: October 25, 2012
These photographs show the conditions at the Bhopal ‘Gas Widows’ Colony’ over two year after chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan declared to transform the face of the colony so that its inmates could live a decent life. The colony to rehabilitate the widows of gas leak victims was developed at Karond village, completely out of the city, by the Madhya 
Pradesh Housing Board in the early nineties out of the funds provided by the Centre. Some of the inmates had lost all male members of the family and were unable to undertake any job because of the illness or old age.
Chauhan, it seems, became aware of the colony only after the June 7, 2010 verdict of the Bhopal CJM (sentencing and then immediately bailing out the Indian officials of Union Carbide) and had for some time made pretty loud noises showing his concern about the plight of the victims, particularly the
widows. He announced his determination to ameliorate the living conditions of these widows.
In the Assembly on June 26, he even listed some of the things for these hapless women and their children: their difficulty in procuring ration cards would be removed, their small dwellings (now in a dilapidated condition for want of care) would be exempted from “property tax” (yes, “property tax”)
and also from water tax (which may wrongly suggest that they get regular drinking water supply in the colony), their houses would be renovated and they would be provided all the civic amenities. He also announced a monthly pension of Rs 500 to the “gas widows”.
The houses still are dilapidated, there is no sewerage system, and drinking water supply is irregular as is electricity supply (though the residents continue to get exorbitant electricity bills) and the medical facilities there are
non-existent. The monthly pension of Rs 500 promised by the chief minister is out of the funds sanctioned by the Centre.
As the displaced persons of the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar projects started Jal Satyagraha in the backwaters of river Narmada in Khandwa district, the BJP government of Madhya Pradesh bombarded the media with official releases claiming how all the affected families had been excellently rehabilitated. It was even insinuated that there were only a handful of protestors and the hints of foreign money playing a role in the anti-government agitation were also broadly dropped.
By the government’s own admission, 50,921 families have been affected by the two projects, 44,631 families by the Indira Sagar dam and 6290 families by the Omkareshwar project. The government claimed that it had spent around Rs 1600 crore on their rehabilitation and other necessities. A total of 46 rehabilitation centres have been developed and each family has been allotted sizeable developed plots and those opting for cash instead of plots have been given the cash. The government announced that it would deal sternly with the handful of protestors who were trying to misguide the displaced persons. The full water levels in the dams would not affect them adversely, the government claimed.
The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), which was spearheading the Jal Satyagraha (agitation by standing in the water) of the oustees, called off the 17-day old agitation on September 10 after the government agreed to lower the water level in the Omkareshwar reservoir from 190.5 metres to 189 metres and to abandon its plan to take the water level to 193 metres. It also announced that it would comply with the May 11, 2011 judgement of the Supreme Court requiring allotment of a minimum of 2 hectares of land to each displaced cultivator family.
Ironically, the BJP itself (when it was in opposition) had described the raising of the height of Indira Sagar dam on Narmada river without proper rehabilitation of the affected people as a “criminal act”. Three senior party leaders who had visited the site had demanded registration of criminal cases against those responsible for raising the height of the dam without first complying with the norms of resettlement and rehabilitation and also institution of a judicial inquiry to determine if the directions for raising the height without resettlement were given from above.
The foundation stone of the Indira Sagar project was laid by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 but the construction of the main dam had started in 1992. The families (NBA says the number is more than the officially admitted), gradually deprived of their lands, homes and means of livelihood, have since been struggling for survival with the annual spectre of submergence if the reservoirs are filled to the capacity.
Unequal fight
It is an unequal fight. The largely illiterate people led by a band of educated and selfless persons had been fighting against the most corrupt pillars of corruption, the ruling politicians (whichever is the party) and bureaucrats. It is a moot point if the politicians and bureaucrats in the Congress government of Digvijay Singh made more money or those in the present BJP government of Shivraj Singh Chauhan out of the misery of these poor people. The courts have occasionally been coming to the aid of the displaced families in spite of blatantly false claims made by those in the government to mislead the judiciary.
In February 2008, a division bench of Chief Justice A K Patnaik and Ajit Singh of the Madhya Pradesh High Court ruled that every farmer, encroacher and adult son of farmer of the oustees of the Omkareshwar dam should be provided agricultural land for land with a minimum allotment of 5 acres of irrigated land, as per the R&R (rehabilitation and resettlement) policy. The High Court also directed that every adult son of such cultivator must also be allotted such land, even if he is not a titleholder. Citing the judgments of the Supreme Court in the first and second Narmada Bachao Andolan cases, and in the N D Jayal Tehri dam case, the High Court stated that it is a fundamental right of the oustees under Article 21 of the Constitution to be made better-off after displacement. The High Court held that the oustees may be made better-off by various means, whether by the allotment of land, or employment, or other schemes. The bench held that it is the constitutional obligation of the State government to provide R&R entitlements to the oustees including the allotment of land.
The directives of the High Court, the Supreme Court and the Grievances Redress Authority (GRA) notwithstanding, the oustees are forced to live in misery and uncertainty by the corrupt governments. The present chief minister, who was calling the Jal Satyagraha as an attempt by a handful of misguided people to mislead the project-affected families, eventually announced that the water level of the dam would be reduced to 189 metres and that land for land would be given to all the people affected by the Omkareshwar dam.
Now the amount of around Rs 1600 crore that the government claims it has spent on providing an excellent resettlement of the oustees! Perhaps a high-level inquiry is needed to look into where this money has gone.
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The Income Tax Department raids on the establishments of Dilip Suryavanshi and Sudhir Sharma spread over several cities in and out of Madhya Pradesh is the worst thing that could have happened to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and, in particular, to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan. According to the tit-bits leaked out to the media, the raids have yielded much more than cash and jewellery and papers of land ownership. If the Central government does not enter into a deal somewhere on the way, as it had done in the past with Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and others, the recoveries can expose the darkest aspects of our democracy.
For instance, official note sheets pertaining to the transfers of senior bureaucrats and files of sensitive construction projects have been found in the papers of Suryavanshi. This, though, has not come as a surprise to those who have been keeping a watch on the functioning of the Chauhan government. When Chauhan became chief minister in late 2005, the charge of the government had, for all practical purpose, passed on to the chief minister’s wife Sadhna Singh Chauhan and Dilip Suryavanshi, then a mere contractor. Today he is The Contractor with a control over all the legal and illegal construction works as well as the mining activities in the State. Babulal Gaur, the seniormost member of the Chauhan cabinet had some time back described Suryavanshi as the biggest contractor with a turnover of Rs 2000 crore. Today Suryavanshi is said to be worth Rs 5000 crore. The combined turnover of Suryavanshi and Sudhir Sharma is said to exceed Rs 9000 crore.
It was said that the lists of IAS and IPS officers for posting at key positions were prepared by Sadhna Singh and Suryavanshi with the help of a trusted middle-rung IAS officer and the chief minister was then called to Suryavanshi’s mansion to put in his signature. The practice had become so scandalous that some senior BJP leaders were said to have drawn the attention of Lal Krishna Advani (then BJP president) towards this and the latter had taken Chauhan to task. The practice was then slightly changed; Suryavanshi would then go to the chief minister’s residence and he and Sadhna Singh would prepare the lists. At some stage, Sadhna Singh’s brother Sanjay Singh was said to have been involved in the process.
This was all in the realm of hearsay so far. The recovery of the confidential government note sheets and files in the possession of a private person with business interests in the government works amounts to the most glaring breach of the provisions of the Constitution.
College lecturer Sudhir Sharma was the ‘find’ of culture and public relations minister Laxmikant Sharma who held mining department during Chauhan’s first tenure. The minister was overawed by the enormity of the wealth that could be siphoned off from the mining operations. As the things started getting hot for him, he gradually inducted Sudhir Sharma as his proxy into the mining operations. The affinity between Laxmikant Sharma and Sudhir Sharma can be gauged from the fact that the Income Tax Department recovered from Sudhir Sharma’s residence an Italian pistol while the licence of the pistol is in the name of Laxmikant Sharma.
Enforcement Directorate
Sudhir Sharma in no time ganged up with Dilip Suryavanshi, the bigger operator. Chauhan made S K Mishra secretary to the mining department (as well as secretary to the chief minister) and placed him at their disposal. As Collector of Sehore, S K Mishra was appointed Returning Officer for Budhni by-election from where Chauhan contested and entered the Assembly after becoming the chief minister. (He was a member of Lok Sabha when appointed chief minister). Mishra had so much displeased the Election Commission by his partisan behaviour during the by-election that the Commission was constrained to order his immediate removal. This was perhaps the first case in the country when a Returning Officer had to be removed for wrong doing just a few days before the polling. This, though, paid dividends to the offending Sehore Collector. As soon as the model code period was over, he was made Collector of Bhopal (a highly coveted posting) and appointed soon afterwards secretary to the chief minister, later made mining secretary as well as secretary to the chief minister. Mishra was removed from this post following the countrywide outrage at the trampling down of IPS officer Narendra Kumar Singh under the wheels of a tractor trolley transporting illegally mined stones in Morena district. (Narendra Kumar Singh’s father has pointed out serious flaws in the CBI investigation of the case and moved the court seeking a fresh investigation).
On the basis of the papers recovered from Dilip Suryavanshi’s mansion ( the reports said that the recovered documents were carried in 20 trunks), the Income Tax Department carried raids on the residence of Harish Singh, a long-time associate of Shivraj Singh Chauhan and now his private secretary. Harish Singh’s disproportionate assets apart, some documents recovered from his residence may reportedly lead the investigators direct to the doorsteps of Shivraj Singh Chauhan.
The Income Tax investigators have found evidence of foreign exchange regulation violations also. They are collating what they have found with the assistance of Enforcement Directorate. What must be causing worry to the top party leadership is that a substantial part of the loot was flowing into the coffers of the party leaders in Delhi. The Rs 250-crore worldwide internet prime ministerial campaign of Lal Krishna Advani during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, in the style of poll campaigns of American presidents, was, it was said, substantially funded from Madhya Pradesh. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj is said to be another beneficiary of Chauhan’s large heartedness. Her declared cash, gold and immovable property multiplied manifold between 2006 when she was elected to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh and 2009 when she contested Lok Sabha election from Vidisha in the State. Surely, these two cannot be the only ones.
MP’s never-ending health scandal
Posted on: June 8, 2012
When the Lokayukta police raided the Bhopal residence of director of health services Dr A N Mittal in the second week of May, Dr Mittal was simply stunned. But his wife Alka Mittal could not keep her cool and shouted at the raiding party: “why don’t you raid the house of the minister whom we give Rs one crore every month; you are only after small fries like us”. Before she could say something more, Dr Mittal rushed to her, put his hand on her mouth and dragged her inside a room.
This, in nutshell, is the story of corruption in Madhya Pradesh and the farce of Lokayukta Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar’s zeal for acting against the corrupt. The initial seizures at Dr Mittal’s residence were estimated around Rs 15 crore. The final figures of Dr Mittal’s worth will be known only after his bank lockers have been checked and his landed properties spread across Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have been evaluated.
It was not as if the Lokayukta had suddenly received tips about corruption in the health department. Complaints have been lying with the Lokayukta against the department and also against Dr Mittal. Former PCC spokesman K K Mishra had lodged a complaint with the Lokayukta that Dr Mittal had, while a joint director in the health department, bungled Rs 2.16 crore in the purchase of fogging machines, had misappropriated Rs 14 crore in the purchase of mosquito nets in 2009-2010, to mention only two.
Income-tax raids
More importantly, a raiding party of Income-Tax Department had found at the palatial residence of then director of health services Dr Yogiraj Sharma in 2007 cash stashed in beds and cupboards and kitchen utensils, besides a large number of gold jewellery and silver articles. But more than the cash, it was the details of his properties, investments and bank accounts that left the I-T sleuths wide-eyed. It took them more than two years to make some sense of the trail of investments made by Dr Sharma in his own name as well as in the names of his relatives and associates. As many as 85 bank accounts in the name of Dr Yogiraj Sharma and his family members were found with a total deposit of Rs 30 crore. Besides, the department had recovered 27 credit and other cards issued by banks.
Another director of health services Dr Ashok Sharma and health commissioner Rajesh Rajora, IAS, were also found in possession of assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. The raids had also led a trail to the family of then health minister Ajay Vishnoi. As the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections were round the corner, Shivraj Singh Chauhan had dropped him from the cabinet. After the elections, Vishnoi was re-inducted into the cabinet, though given charge of another department. Present health minister Narottam Mishra is a close confidant of chief minister Chauhan and his wife Sadhna Singh — and known for taking extra cautions in the matters extracurricular.
This is the money received mostly from the Centre under various schemes to provide health care to the children, the pregnant and lactating women, the weaker sections, the rural poor and the like. One can just imagine the condition of the health services in the State, unabashed lies being daily doled out by the chief minister notwithstanding. Was it a wonder that the sex ratio had started showing considerable improvement in all the 50 districts of the State from 2001 onwards but it drastically declined in 49 of the 50 districts during the Shivraj Singh Chauhan regime.
Moreover, what the Income-Tax and Lokayukta raids bring out is but a small percentage of the total amount siphoned off by the politicians and bureaucrats. It will be naive to presume that only Dr Mittal, or Dr Yogiraj Sharma, had been taking the money and others in the department had been just moot spectators.
A simultaneous raid on the residence of junior auditor Ganesh Prasad Kirar gives an idea of chief minister Chauhan’s meticulous corruption network. Kirar was employed in the chief minister’s secretariat and enjoyed the confidence of Chauhan household. About two years back he was transferred to the health department, reportedly at the suggestion of health minister Narottam Mishra. There are 17 auditors in the department. However, all the files of Dr Mittal were reportedly “cleared” by Kirar — for the obvious reason.
The raid on Kirar’s house had yielded Rs 10 lakh in cash, Rs ten lakh in two bank accounts, half a kg of gold, 4.5 kg of silver, 20 acres of land in Raisen district, two palatial bungalows and a flat in Bhopal, four shops in posh localities in Bhopal, two cars, two motor-cycles and a tractor.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has also been highlighting the bungling in the health department. The CAG, according to his report for the financial year ending March 31, 2009, for instance, had carried out test checks in 12 districts and found that 49 to 58 per cent pregnant women had not even been registered in health centres during their first trimester. The maternal and infant mortality rate continued to be high. Spectacles were not supplied to as many as 30,715 children out of 57,191 suffering from vision problems, from 2005 to 2009 in these 12 districts.
The CAG test checked 17 Community Health Centres declared as Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care but none of these had the required infrastructure; 25 test-checked Primary Health Centres were found to be non-functional or functioning only partially because of lack of sufficient staff and infrastructure and 101 Primary Health Centres were functioning without doctors.
The State had recruited only 42,777 accredited social health activists (ASHAs) as against the requirement of 44,379. These ASHAs were mostly functioning as motivators under the Janani Suraskha Yojana of the State’s health department, leaving other functions under the NRHM unattended, according to the report.
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