Lucknow: Is Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath being misled by the bureaucracy on key issues? Yes, if a section of BJP leaders are to be believed. These BJP leaders feel it is because of some bureaucrats that Yogi Adityanath has faced embarrassment and the image of the government has taken a beating in the past four months.
Some BJP leaders allege officials misled the chief minister in the case of ‘explosives’ found in the state Assembly, last month. Top officials told him the white powder was the deadly explosive, PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate), without waiting for a forensic examination. The chief minister then made an announcement in the state Assembly about PETN being found and a massive security exercise was immediately undertaken. It was later found that the PETN theory had been floated by the director of Lucknow Forensic Laboratory, Shyam Bihari Upadhyaya, against whom Mr Adityanath earlier ordered an inquiry.
The PETN theory was later blasted by experts. The NIA team brushed the issue under the carpet to save the Yogi government from further embarrassment. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said the security exercise was to cancel passes of the media and the Opposition.
The chief minister recently found himself in another embarrassing situation when 30 children in BRD Medical College died. Officials kept insisting the deaths were not due to oxygen disruption and the chief minister made a statement to this effect.
However, as the media carried out an investigation, letters about shortage of oxygen and non-payment to the supplier emerged, leaving the state government stumped.
More recently, when the Utkal Express derailed in Khatauli, the DGP office and the home department kept making contradictory claims about the number of casualties and the injured persons.
“In all these cases, no action was taken against the persons responsible for making the government lose its sheen. The bureaucracy has to be reined in if the CM wants to make an impact”, said a senior bjp leader.
