Introduction: The recent and the controversial transfer of official in Bihar, intended as the are o make the polls unfair and unfree will amount to denying o denying the people of the state right o change the regime, says V Krishna Ananth
Periodic transfer of IAS and IPS officers is a routine affair. And political leaders across the spectrum are in the habit of ordering such transfers, most often, to remind the officers that the civil administration shall remain subordinate to their political masters. There are good enough reasons for the system to function this way and that is how it shall be in a democracy and in a polity as diverse and fractured as it is.
But then, the recent spate of transfers and postings of officials effected by Bihar governor Buta Singh falls in a different category. And is an affront to democracy on the face of it. in addition to that, the fact that Buta Singh went about issuing orders without even involving the chief secretary of the state, illustrates a kind of brazenness that is clearly inimical to all established canons of democratic behaviour.
The point is that a number of officers who did their job pretty well in the districts and particularly when the poll process was on in January-February 2005 have been moved out of their posts. And the transfers were ordered with such haste so that things are ‘in place’ before the Election Commission announces the schedule for polls to the state assembly. Such transfers are not possible once the schedule is announced. The Model Code of Conduct will come into force then!
Now, whose cause did Buta Singh serve by ordering the transfers? He has certainly not served the cause of his party - the Congress - in doing this. For, the Congress is hardly a factor in the Bihar scene and this was evident from its tally in the last elections. Sonia Gandhi should remain obliged to Ram Vilas Paswan for having helped the Congress secure 11 seats in the dissolved assembly. Ever since it lost power in Bihar in 1990, the Congress party’s score has only dwindled election after election. And it is possible that India’s grand old party will go unrepresented in the Bihar Legislative Assembly if it does not manage an alliance with Lalu Yadav’s RJD this time.
And even if it manages an alliance, its score could remain under ten seats! Thus, it is obvious that Buta Singh was not serving his own party’s cause by effecting bureaucratic transfers. It is also unfair to accuse him of serving the NDA’s cause by doing this. Buta Singh may have joined the NDA sometime in the past and got himself rewarded with a berth in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Cabinet for a short while; he had to quit after a chargesheet was filed against him in the JMM bribery case. Buta, however, is not with the NDA at this point of time.
Well, the truth is known to all. The transfers were effected by Buta Singh on orders from Lalu Yadav. And Sonia Gandhi may well have endorsed it; and possibly in exchange for an assurance by Lalu Yadav that he could consider the Congress as an ally if Buta Singh did whatever the RJD wanted.
Why did the RJD chief need this? He needed to remove several bureaucrats from their posts to ensure that officers loyal to him and the cause he claims to defend (call it secular or sectarian or partisan depending upon your own political preferences) in the district and police administration across the state.
By this, Lalu will be able to decide on the list of sensitive polling booths and on the deployment of central forces on polling day. In other words, Lain, through his loyalists in the district administration, will be able to include those polling stations where his party is weak as ones where the central forces will be posted throughout the polling day; and those polling stations where his party is in command of more musclemen than his rivals are categorised in a manner so that central forces are not deployed there.
This certainly will ensure the RJD win a majority in the elections! Rather, without this, the RJD could end up with lesser number of seats than the 75 it secured the last time. A careful management of official postings and pliant officers in place in such segments as Siwan, Gopalganj and Jehanabad could help the RJD wrest a number of assembly seats from the Janata Dal (U) there. Recall the fact that civil and police officers in these districts had ensured a free and fair polling by keeping Mohammed Shahabuddin in jail and by preventing Lain Yadav’s brother-in-law and MP, Sadhu Yadav from entering Gopalganj. All this meant the RJD ended up losing seats. Lalu is not prepared to let the same thing happen this time. And that is why he probably got Sonia Gandhi to direct Buta Singh to do whatever is considered in the interests of the RJD.
Sonia, after all, was prepared to break away with her pre-poll ally, Ram Vilas Paswan and commit her party to support Rabri Devi’s claims for the chief minister’s post. And when the NDA’s Nitish Kumar was almost close to managing a majority in the assembly, she must have ordered Buta Singh to carry out whatever Lain Yadav wanted: dissolve the state assembly.
Sonia Gandhi did all this and is prepared to do a lot more not because the Congress party would like Rabri Devi as chief minister in Bihar. Instead, the Congress would want Bihar to remain under the RJD simply because the survival of the Congress-led UPA government depends entirely on keeping Lalu Yadav happy. And this being the case, all the constituents in the UPA, including the CPI (M) and the CPI are unlikely to protest. For, secularism is a cause worth defending even if the means are undemocratic!
But then, all this also amounts
to perpetrating injustice and imposing an unjust regime on the people of
Bihar. The number of illiterates is so high in Bihar and the state registers
the highest number of deaths due to kala azar because the successive regimes
in the state were corrupt and insensitive to the needs of the people. Both
Lalu and Rabri are indeed guilty of this. For this very reason, the people
of Bihar have the right to opt for a regime change this time. And the recent
and the controversial transfer of officials, intended as they are to make
the polls unfair and unfree will amount to denying them their right.