By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet minister Omprakash Rajbhar, who represents Zahoorabad constituency in Ghazipur district is still sulking after his demand for transfer of District Magistrate of Ghazipur Sanjay Kumar Khatri failed to get desired results.
Rajbhar views this as anti-backward policy of BJP.
From announcing to resign from the ministry and giving call for dharna for transferring the DM to meeting CM Yogi Adityanath, the minister is yet to get the official transferred. Latest being he conveyed his demand to BJP president Amit Shah who reportedly assured him of action in 15 days.
Meanwhile for the opposition parties, Rajbhar has given them an issue to target Yogi government. Rajbhar is trying his best to make the issue as an effort which is against backward class people.
Rajbhar, heads Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party and contested assembly polls in alliance with BJP winning four seats. Rajbhar holds portfolio of Department of Backward Classes Welfare and Disable welfare.
As per reports the acrimony began when one Narijan Rajbhar from Manirampur village of Ghazipur met Yogi Adityanath in his Janata Darbar in June and handed over a land-grabbing complaint against SBSP party chief Omprakash Rajbhar. The complaint was forwarded to local administration for redressal.
Revenue officials went for land demarcation but the matter got worse when Ramji Rajbhar and Rajnet Rajbhar allegedly manhandled the officials on June 17. DM Khatri then ordered police officials to register a case against Ramji and Rajnet Rajbhar, who are reported to be brothers of minister Omprakash Rajbhar.
Minister Rajbhar took this matter as a personal attack and labelled Khatri as an officer working against Backward castes. He also started a Purvanchal-wide protest for the transfer of Khatri.
In his defence, Rajbhar said, “I asked DM to work on roadside encroachments. But instead of working, he booked several of my party leaders.”
Rajbhar had planned to sit on dharna on July 4 but cancelled after Yogi’s intervention. Rajbhar met CM Yogi and his dharna was cancelled. Among his charter of demands, he also demanded that DM should be transferred.
But even after two and a half months, DM Khatri still remains DM of Ghazipur. Rajbhar meanwhile had tried thrice to stage dharna against DM in past one month but called off each time at eleventh hour.
Amidst the tussle, political sources informed that Union Minister Manoj Sinha who is also Ghazipur MP is in favour of Khatri continuing in his office. Since both Sinha and Rajbhar have political ground in Ghazipur, it is necessary for them to hold ground. If sources are to be belived, Sinha was allegedly against the alliance between BJP and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party in assembly polls but had to buckle under pressure from BJP’s top leadership.
A local administrative official from Ghazipur confided, “Khatri has not taken any action against since the arrest of Rajbhars, but Mantri ji is still furious about what happened in past. He does not want to bend.”
Minister Omprakash Rajbhar was in Varanasi on Friday, where he told media, “This episode is not maligning my image but of the government because I am a cabinet minister. I have conveyed my views to everyone, but no action has been taken yet”.
“Now BJP has to look if it wants to continue the alliance with SBSP as Khatri’s presence in the district is an insult to the people who have voted me and elevated me to the minister’s post,” added Rajbhar.
When Amit Shah was on a three-day tour of Lucknow he met ministers of Yogi cabinet. Rajbhar also met Amit Shah with the same demand on the table. He requested Shah to make arrangements for the transfer of Ghazipur DM. On this it is reported that Shah had assured of action within 15 days.
Meanwhile Rajbhar is trying to project it as BJP’s apathy towards backward classes and allies of BJP. In Varanasi, one party member informed that party is seeing this whole incident as a move to make SBSP inferior in the alliance.
But Rajbhar’s campaign to transfer DM has surely made him a laughing stock for the opposition parties. Manoj Rai Dhoopchandi, a SP leader who enjoyed minister of state status during previous SP regime said, “This is a laughable situation, but also a worrying one. A cabinet minister from the backward community is running everywhere to get a DM transferred, yet the party and the leadership are not willing to hear him. This also proves that BJP is Pro-Upper Caste.”
Commenting on the situation, former MLA and Congress leader Ajay Rai said, “When CM Yogi was in Varanasi last month, he asked officers to complete the bridge by the month’s end otherwise he would jail them. Now if a Chief Minister is announcing to jail the officers, what could one expect from his ministers?”