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Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
Having transferred over 200 Indian Administrative Services and Indian Police Services officers after taking over as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on May 3, Mayawati has created a record of sorts - a little over one transfer an hour.
While administrative changes become the order of the day every time a new dispensation takes over in Lucknow, the scale at which the Bahujan Samaj Party leader has undertaken transfers is unprecedented.
Nearly one-fourth of the IAS/IPS cadre in the state has been affected by the changes. And there are indications that Mayawati may not be through yet.
Though no one is willing to go on record, many officers complain that transfers were being effected largely on extraneous considerations. While caste is the underlying factor in most of the cases, surely there are other "invisible" considerations too.
The chief minister has also given a go-by to the Civil Services Board, which was created on the insistence of the IAS Association in December last year to regulate transfers.
The three-member board constitutes of the chairman of the Board of Revenue (generally the senior-most IAS officer in the state), the chief secretary and the appointments secretary.
While the visibly unending list of transfers has led to murmurs of protest in the Bharatiya Janata Party, a BSP ally, none of the senior leaders have commented on the issue publicly. In fact some of them have justified the transfers. "So what if she has transferred a large number of senior bureaucrats and police officers," said Housing Minister Lalji Tandon.
Asked to comment on the charge of nepotism, Tandon shot back: "Tell me which chief minister does not have a few favourites."
There is some truth is Tandon's statement. During his second stint as chief minister in 1993-94, Mulayam Singh Yadav had shifted 323 IAS and 493 IPS officers.
Kalyan Singh transferred 485 IAS and 665 IPS officers. Ram Prakash Gupta and Raj Nath Singh together transferred 250 IAS and an equal number of IPS officers.
However, during her previous two stints - four and six months respectively - Mayawati broke all records by shifting a total of 568 IAS and 787 IPS officers.
How far she will go this time remains to be seen.
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