The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is falling prey to a stubborn bureaucracy determined to stall any drastic changes in the work culture. When the Yogi government breezed in with an unnerving majority two months ago, the Chief Minister was determined to change the laid-back attitude of the bureaucrats, check the VIP culture and corruption. The bureaucracy is silently making sure that he does not.
The CM, through a series of inspections, unearthed massive scams in the dream projects of his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav—be it the Gomti riverfront or the Janeshwar Misra Park or the Jai Prakash Narain International Centre. All projects were highly overpriced while the work was far from being complete. The CM asked the officials concerned to prepare a report and nail the guilty at the earliest. The government is completing two months in office, but not a single report has been submitted and as a result, no action can be taken against the guilty. A senior BJP functionary admitted that the delay in completion of inquiries and the subsequent action against corrupt officers was casting a shadow on the Yogi government’s image.
“The CM should take this up on priority basis because action against such officials will send the right message down the line and make administration easier for him,” the leader said. “It is a clear case of you-save-me and-I save-you. The political bosses will change, but the bureaucrats remain comrades in arms. The CM is fighting against a dead wall if he expects the officers to act against each other. A classic example of this is the appointment of the new DGP Sulkhan Singh, who is known to be an honest and upright officer. Singh is in office, but nothing else has changed in the police working and the law and order situation is going from bad to worse,” said a former chief secretary. According to sources, the main problem with the Yogi government lies in its choice of officials.“The CM does not personally know the integrity of the majority of the bureaucrats. He wants honest and hard working officers with him, but there are not too many of this kind left in UP. Therefore, he has to make do with what is before him,” said a close aide of the CM.
His ministers too are finding themselves in similar situations. A senior Cabinet minister, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that, “I have asked my principal secretary thrice for a particular file, but he has not given the same to me yet. Left to myself, I would have sent him on a long leave for not complying with my orders. The problem is that most of us are not carrying complaints to the CM because we feel it is still too early.” The bureaucrats are taking advantage of the fact that Yogi Adityanath, both the Deputy CMs Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Sharma as well as a large number of Cabinet and state ministers lack administrative experience. The bureaucrats are making the ministers apprehensive of consequences and delaying decisions.