Lucknow: UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath may have made his mark as a no-nonsense chief minister in the past 10 days but he has kept the state bureaucracy on tenterhooks.
The chief minister has neither sacked any official nor has he initiated departmental action against anyone. Instead, he has focused his attention on the law and order situation, closure of unauthorised slaughter house and completing of unfinished projects.
The much-awaited administrative reshuffle has also not taken place. Transfers of bureaucrats in top position have been almost mandatory with the change of government in Uttar Pradesh but Adityanath Yogi obviously has better things in mind.
Mr Yogi has not even transferred officials in the CM’s secretariat and the chief secretary and DGP continue to be the ones appointed by the previous Akhilesh government.
It may be recalled that transfers of top bureaucrats is usually don within hours of the new government being sworn in. Ms Mayawati, in 2007, had transferred over 125 IAS and IPS officials within hours of assuming office while Akhilesh, in 2012, had completed the exercise within 24 hours.
Talking to this correspondent on condition of anonymity, a senior Cabinet minister in the Yogi government said, “The chief minister does not wish to send a message that he is being vindictive. He believes that this is the best way to de-politicise the bureaucracy and we are already seeing the results. Officials who were perceived to be close to the previous chief minister are now coming forward to disclose all that went wrong in the SP regime”.
The Cabinet minister said that Mr Yogi would only reshuffle the bureaucracy if he felt that a particular officer was not working properly.
The bureaucrats, on the other hand, remain apprehensive in this situation. “It is indeed surprising that the chief minister has not brought in officers of his choice. This implies that he had no favourites and if he continues with this policy, he will get the whole hearted support of the administration. We are fed up of being called SP’s men or BSP’s men — we want to be known as UP’s men for a change,” said a principal secretary rank officer.
Interestingly, the CM has also asked his ministers not to press for officers of their choice without any apparent reason.
