The bureaucracy in Uttar Pradesh has started causing embarrassment to the state government by ensuring that it makes the government speak in a voice that is opposed to the stand taken by the Samajwadi Party.
The double-speak of the state government on crucial issues has started giving uneasy moments to chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and is also making his government vulnerable to the Opposition attacks.
From the moment he was sworn in, the chief minister has been claiming that the scams in the construction of parks and memorials in the Mayawati regime added up to `40,000 crores.
Two days ago, in the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Parishad, the state government stated in writing that merely a sum of `5000 crores was spent on parks and memorials — a gaping gap of almost `35,000 crores between the estimates of the chief minister and the government.
Similarly in the alleged scam in the sale of sugar mills, the state government claimed that no scam had taken place.
The Samajwadi Party had been claiming during the polls that huge payoffs were made to the BSP regime and the mills were deliberately under priced to benefit private players.
In yet another instance, senior Uttar Pradesh minister Shivpal Singh Yadav said that an inquiry would be set up in the renovation of Ms Mayawati’s official bungalow that had cost the state exchequer `86 crore. A RTI query filed by Mr Yadav had revealed that the government had spent `86 crore on renovation of the 13 Mall Avenue bungalow allotted to the former chief minister.
In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the government declined to order any probe into the matter, leaving the minister red-faced.