Mayawati & the mysterious briefcase- 1

Mayawati, much before she became the Chief Minister of the largest state of the country, desired to get into the civil services after graduation. However, she discovered it was easier to rule over civil servants than to get into the services. Her mentor, Kanshi Ram played an important role in ensuring that she rose to head Uttar Pradesh that was going through a huge socio-political turmoil. In fact, she became the Chief Minister after the infamous guest house incident where she was under siege by the alleged supporters of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the then Chief Minister (CM). Once she took charge, it didn’t take her very long to learn the ropes and there were a number of civil servants who were willing to do her bidding.

P L Punia (discussed elsewhere in the book), a leader par excellence who had earlier been Principal Secretary to Mulayam Singh Yadav during his tenure as Chief Minister, was now Principal Secretary to his arch-rival, Mayawati. He got me into the CM Secretariat. I was quite clueless and uneasy from day one in this assignment. There were many instances when it became worse.

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In Uttar Pradesh during the 1990s, the transfer industry was a lucrative pass-time for a number of politicians and obliging civil servants. But during the first tenure of Mayawati as Chief Minister (CM), it flourished to reach even unprecedented highs. Mayawati wanted to demonstrate her power by suspending senior civil servants. The institution of the District Magistrate (DM)/Collector had gathered rust over a period of time, but the post was still a coveted one amongst civil servants because it gave enormous authority to the incumbent to do good or bad. Having risen from the grass-roots, Mayawati was fully aware of the authority of the Collector. Hence, during her tenure, she went well beyond just transfers of Collectors. She suspended a number of them. The act of damage control was left to the Secretariat of the Chief Minister as her actions were demoralising a large number of civil servants.

Among them was a young Collector named Arun Singhal with an impeccable reputation. He was suspended for an issue that didn’t directly relate to him. After all, a Collector has to oversee and coordinate functions of a large number of field functionaries as part of his administrative responsibilities. However, when the whole punitive procedure was executed simply to demonstrate one’s authority, substantive issues did not matter. Totally distraught, this officer came to meet me. The facts that he narrated didn’t warrant any action against the Collector, let alone his suspension.

On hearing his plight, I immediately approached the Principal Secretary and briefed him about the entire case. He too concurred that the concerned officer was not at fault. The question now was how to get the suspension revoked. The Chief Minister was so full of herself that she couldn’t be told that she had taken the wrong decision. This would have been disastrous. Hence, we decided to devise a different strategy to save the officer.

We had come to know that the CM used to be in the best of moods early morning during breakfast. As a matter of strategy, the task was not left to the day officer. A few of us, including the Principal Secretary, presented ourselves before the CM during breakfast. She appeared to be in a great mood. After a brief general chat to assess her mood, one of us mentioned how sometimes officers who are otherwise good end up making some mistakes inadvertently. As she nodded her head in agreement, we brought up the issue of the officer who was suspended on the previous day. Even before she could react, another officer took up his end of the performance: he endorsed the displeasure of the Chief Minister towards the officer and then went on to add that it was an inadvertent mistake on the part of the officer that he had been appropriately reprimanded.

We knew that the officer was not at fault but contesting the decision of the CM directly would not have helped in undoing the damage. We were not contesting her decision even though it was the wrong one. The CM came around and agreed to revoke the suspension. The revocation orders were issued forthwith. The officer went on to excel in his career and in future, when he was in a position to prevent similar damage to other officers, he did it with conviction.

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I was on duty as day officer and as per the protocol, I reached the residence of Mayawati, the Chief Minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh (UP) early in the morning. I was informed that she was having breakfast, so I sat in the drawing-room waiting for her arrival. As I was waiting, in walked one of the Collectors of a western district of UP. He had a briefcase in his hand.

His gait as he entered was confident. However, the moment he saw me his gaze and his gait, both faltered. A sheepish look emerged on his face. I couldn’t immediately fathom the reason for the abrupt change in his demeanour. Very surprisingly, he didn’t even stop but simply walked past me straight into the room where the CM was having her breakfast. To be honest, having known the officer for the past few years, I had expected him to stop by and exchange a few pleasantries before proceeding.

There wasn’t much for me to do; so, I sat in the room reading the newspaper. After a while, the officer came out but he didn’t have the briefcase in his hand. I had no proof of what transpired inside but the absence of the briefcase made me suspicious. As I knew the officer personally, I confronted him and inquired about the briefcase he had brought with him, “It appears that you have left behind the briefcase by mistake”. His response and demeanour gave it away. He nervously and haltingly responded, “No, no! It was for the Chief Minister”.  “Briefcase for the Chief Minister? You got it all the way from the District?” I enquired. He smiled nervously but didn’t respond verbally. I knew the answer. The briefcase obviously did not contain files. Files were not carried to the CM in briefcases. In any case, which file would a Collector bring to the CM in a briefcase? The cat was out of the bag.

I was livid. Here was a young Collector demonstrating to a green-horn Chief Minister that officers could deliver such ‘briefcases’. I gave a piece of my mind to this young Collector who was just a year junior to me. I told him bluntly, “You have demonstrated to the CM that she can expect such offerings from officers. What you have done is not merely wrong but a ‘continuous wrong’ as she would expect this from other officers as well”. He heard me out and did not react at all. Thereafter he left. I was in a daze for a while.

I did not have the mortification of serving in the Secretariat of Mayawati when she became Chief Minister again. And during this period the horrid stories floating around of ‘briefcases’ first turning into ‘suitcases’ and then to ‘trunks’ grew in intensity, manifold.