Officers' postings: Yogi Adityanath plays SC/ST card

Lucknow: With the Lok Sabha elections knocking at the doors, the sun has started shining bright for OBC and dalit officers in the Yogi Adityanath government.

As part of its agenda to woo dalits and OBCs, the Yogi government has star-ted giving important positions to dalit and OBC officers in the state government. This is the first time, that in a non-BSP government, the dalit officers are being given choice postings in the state.

According to sources in the personnel department, there are nine dalit officials posted as district magistrates at present which is about 9 per cent of the total numbers of officials in the same rank.

The number of district magistrates belonging to OBC castes is 16 which is 21.3 per cent of the posts.

At the commissioner level, the number of dalit officials is 3 which amou-nts for 16.6 per cent and the OBC officers at this level are 4 which is 22.2 per cent. Similarly, in the police services too, OBC and dalit officers have been given preferences. The ADG level officers in Gorakhpur and Bareilly belong to the dalit category while the IG and DIG rank officers posted in Varanasi, Azamgarh and Mirzapur belong to the same caste group.

“There are more than two dozen dalit officers who are holding commanding positions in the government. This is in contrast to the previous government when officers belonging to one caste group in the OBC category were given prime positions”, said an officer in the personnel department.

According to BJP sour-ces, the idea behind giving important positions to dalit and OBC officers in the districts is to check atrocities on the deprived sections of society.

“If a dalit officer is posted as district magistrate or police chief, he will be more receptive and respo-nsive to the complaints coming from dalits,” said a BJP functionary