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Home secretary's transfer bodes ill for Vajpayee & Co

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

The Vajpayee government may not have expected that the shunting of Union Home Secretary B P Singh to the health ministry would affect its poll prospects in Bihar. But the strong reaction evoked in Singh's home state indicate that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has committed a faux pas.

Not only that, the transfers of senior bureaucrats in Delhi has pushed the state unit of the BJP and Samata on to the backfoot. They had been gunning for the Rabri Devi government, which too had been busy in the transfer business in the last week of April. State Chief Secretary Vijay Shankar Dubey and Director General of Police T P Sinha were sent packing and the post-President's rule officers restored. Similar changes were made at the division and district levels.

The national general secretary of the Samata Party Lallan Kumar Singh filed a public interest litigation in the Patna high court seeking the annulment of the transfer as they had been made with "ulterior motives." The leader of opposition in the state assembly Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP too charged that the transfers were to manipulate the forthcoming election.

However, the Bihar government, to quote party leader Ram Kripal Yadav, "was well within its right to transfer officials as the election has not been notified." Besides, according to him, the Rabri Devi government is a full-fledged government that can take such decisions.

The transfers have landed the BJP-Samata in trouble. This is not because they come under verbal shelling from the RJD, Congress and Left parties but because of some other tactical reason. B P Singh, an IAS officer of Assam cadre (he authored a book on the North-East), is a Bhumihar from the Begusarai district of North Bihar. Appointed at this post by the United Front government, Singh, in the words of noted social scientist and member-secretary of Asian Development Research Institute Saibal Gupta, is "a pride of the state in more than one ways."

Hailing from a modest cultivator family, Singh was regarded in high esteem in his home state not only among his own caste but even outside. Having served as a college teacher in Patna University before competing for the IAS, he still has contacts in the intellectual circles of the state. And unlike many other officials from Bihar he always tried to contribute something to the state. He was the second IAS from Bihar to become the home secretary.

Though it was his inability to conduct polls at the earliest which, according to sources, led to his transfer, the other reason being cited is his softness towards RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav. Though being a bhumihar, Singh was suspected by many in the BJP rank as he was appointed during the time of the United Front government. They alleged that thanks to Yadav, the outgoing home secretary's nephew is a special counsel in Bihar.

Besides, Singh's son-in-law is an IPS officer in the Bihar government. Sources close to his family believe that Singh would have been removed just after the coming to power of the BJP government as he owes his appointment to a Communist Party of India leader from Bihar who was close to the then home minister Indrajit Gupta. However, according to sources, it was just because his son and L K Advani's nephew are friends that he was not removed from the post. Of late the home minister started distrusting him for his advise on Bihar which is politically a crucial state.

This may or may not be one of the factors. But that which is now disturbing the BJP-Samata combine is that his transfer is definitely going to send wrong signals to the Bhumihars, the landed upper caste of Bihar. They had deserted the Congress and had thrown their weight behind the Hindutva party with the hope that their political marginalisation will be checked. However, it appears that the BJP leaders always looked at this caste with some doubt and suspicion and party general secretary Govindacharya, during the 1996 election, even accused them of being `not dependable'. In January last year some senior leaders of the BJP were expelled because they opposed the witch-hunting against the Bhumihars.

With hardly any Bhumihar calling the shot in the BJP the state party leadership was pinning the hope that the presence of the Union home secretary may, one way or the other, help the party electorally -- though they were full aware that Singh has little to do with the Hindutva party. Though his removal from the post has evoked a strong reaction from leaders cutting across caste and party line, it is the Bhumihars who have strongly denounced the Union government's act.

Veteran CPI leader Shatrughan Prasad Singh, a Bhumihar, was quick to fax a message to the Election Commission demanding the immediate revocation of the transfer order. He charged that such a move is an `insult to Bihar'.

State president of the Lok Dal Satyanand Sharma, another Bhumihar, also flayed the transfer, saying that it was against established democratic norms.

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