state of the Mafia

With the organised crime syndicate-bureaucracy-politician nexus flourishing and entrenched, a new government in UP has a lot on its hands

Pradeep Kapoor Lucknow

The first task of a new government in Lucknow would be to restore the rule of law in a state virtually taken over by organised crime syndicates and hoodlums. The BSP leader Mayawati has already made the restoration of law and order the main theme of her party’s election campaign. She has been claiming that she would arrest Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh for all the ‘crimes’ they have committed in the last three years.

Criminal gangs backed by political parties have reduced law and order to a farce in UP. Goons protected by politicians have brazenly grabbed houses in Lucknow and other towns, leaving the occupants with no choice but to vacate high-value properties in prime areas. There are suggestions that many of these forcible occupations have taken place at the behest of the SP ministers who are desperate to pick up old bungalows before they lose power. The first job of the new government would be to take a hard look at the many cases of distress sale of expensive properties in Lucknow, Allahabad, Kanpur and other places. It would also help in finding out who the real players are behind the benami owners. 

Normally, these cases show up in the police files. But the police force is now so terrified of politicians that they look the other way whenever complaints are made against those with the ‘right connections’. A close relative of Mulayam Singh slapped Amitabh Thakur, SSP of Farukkhabad. Five brothers claiming to be ‘Lohiaputras’ (literally, sons/inheritors of socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia) from Kanpur picked up the police official Rajesh Sahni in Lucknow and paraded him on their jeep. Why? Because he dared to stop their vehicle to ask questions. An IPS officer Shailendra Singh was forced to resign when he was pressurised to stay the proceedings against mafia don Mukhtar Ansari for allegedly trying to purchase a light machine gun.

There have been allegations regarding bungling in appointments in the police force. It was alleged that majority of appointments were made only after exchange of money and that members of the Yadav community were favoured, while other caste members were ignored. Indeed, reportedly, Muslims were deliberately kept out of the force. This sensitive matter was raised recently by Janmorcha leader Hasan Kamal in Lucknow.

Another big challenge before the new government will be how to de-politicise  a powerful section of the entrenched bureaucracy which conducted itself almost as an integral part of the ruling party machinery. Senior bureaucrats led by chief secretary NC Vajpai were present at the ‘three-year celebrations’ of Mulayam Singh’s party at the party headquarters. Vajpai, in his speech, not only brazenly praised the chief minister, but he also had a few good things to say about his son, Akhilesh Yadav, MP.

Cabinet Secretary BK Chaturvedi in Delhi, in an interview to Hardnews recently, had expressed his anger over the behaviour of such partisan bureaucrats and demanded action against them. The participation of bureaucrats had raised a storm in UP’s political circles and many wanted the Centre to take action against these officials. Predictably, when the elections were announced, the Election Commission removed Vajpai.

Corruption has become so rampant in the state that governance has become virtually impossible. central funds are wilfully pocketed and they have contributed in feeding the real estate boom. No project is cleared without the consideration of the mafia. Many top companies, such as the Tatas, it is learnt, have been denied work as they have refused to give ‘consideration money’ to the decision-makers. A major task of the new government would be to appoint a high-level commission on how development funds have been squandered in the last three years and how contracts have been disbursed by bodies like the UP State Development Council.

Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi have been saying that central funds were not only misused, but had been diverted for other purposes by the SP regime. Sonia Gandhi exposed the bungling in road construction in her own constituency. Follow-up raids exposed the poor quality of construction of roads in Rae Bareilly. Indeed, during the three years of the SP rule, two chief secretaries were appointed. Both were removed with accusations of corruption after the Supreme Court’s intervention.

The new government in Lucknow would also be expected to break the organised nexus between the contractor-mafia and the entrenched vested interests in the bureaucracy. Increasingly, all major development work, be it the laying of roads or raising the heights of dams, is being cornered by the contractor-mafia. All those officials who try to stand up to them are either transferred or removed from the scene. The former principal secretary (home and PWD), SK Agarwal, had informed newsmen that even as he was holding a monitoring meeting with senior officials of the PWD, certain engineers told him that they were getting threats on their mobile phones from the mafia in their areas asking them for contracts.

Recently, the World Bank had expressed displeasure over the poor quality of work on ‘their’ projects. The report mentioned that declining law and order situation was creating obstacles to more investment. The Allahabad High Court took the mafia’s expansion seriously and asked a senior UP bureaucrat, G Patnaik, to prepare a report. The new government should study the report and get down to implementing its recommendations, that is, if they can really break apart the vicious cobwebs of crime and corruption. The question is, despite the rhetoric, will the new regime do it? Indeed, can the new regime do it?