New Delhi: Most of the newly elected ministers in Madhya Pradesh are having a tough time at office as they are working without personal staff and personal assistants — considered as their ears and eyes — for the last one month. Reason?
Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has seemingly taken a cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take extra care in vetting their personal staff. Last week, the chief minister turned down the recommendations of 15 ministers for appointment of personal staff as they were working for several years during the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
The ministers awaiting staff include Vishwas Sarang; Krishna Gaur, Pratima Babri, Prahlad Sindg Patel, Chetan Kashyap, Inder Singh Parmar, Rakesh Shukla, Rao Uday Pratap, Narendra Shivraj Patel, Lakhan Patel, Dilip Jaiswal, Narayan Singh Kushwaha, Sampatiya Uikey, among others.
There are also several departments where the CM is yet to take calls on regular appointment of officers and this uncertainty is impacting governance.
In 2014 when Modi took over as the prime minister, he issued a directive to newly appointed ministers to not appoint OSDs and private secretaries who worked during the UPA rule. He further asked ministers to not appoint any relative as personal staff, resulting in several Cabinet ministers waiting to get personal secretary for several months. Personal choices of ministers were ignored and all appointments were cleared only after PMO scrutiny, it is learnt.
Young fresh faces from RSS-backed Deen Dayal Research Institute were selected to be positioned for personal staff appointment in every ministry, according to the BJP insiders.
Modi’s plan was to end the nexus of personal staff who become ‘operators’ in the Delhi power circles and became a permanent fixture in the establishment whether it was Congress or BJP government. Even then home minister Rajnath Singh had to contend with PS and OSD selected by the PMO.
On Wednesday, several cabinet ministers raised the issue before CM Yadav regarding the appointment of personal staff.
Yadav asked ministers to make scrutiny of staff before recommending him. “He said he will immediately recommend appointment of staff if they were found to be people of integrity but ministers should avoid recommending those people who are serving as staff for several years and become a power centre in the system,“ a BJP insider said.
Last week, the general administration department, which comes under Yadav, had returned the files of recommendation of 15 ministers.
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Labour dept row
What triggered this scrutiny of personal staff and appointments of bureaucrats was when Yadav found Deputy Labour Commissioner Lakshmi Prasad Pathak, the OSD of former Union minister and MP labour minister Prahlad Singh Patel, is facing corruption charges, It was found that the Lokayukta is investigating Pathak in a case of corruption and that he has been charge sheeted in a court.
The Lokayukta had written a letter to the labour department to initiate prosecution against Pathak, but even before that the department had made him OSD on personal posting of Prahlad Patel.
Subsequently, on 11 January, the MP government made the Betul Labor Officer the temporary OSD of Prahlad Patel with the current charge.
Prahlad Patel is said to have been left miffed with the entire episode and came out on social media where he questioned the process.
श्रम मंत्रालय भोपाल ने जिन महानुभाव को मेरे साथ अस्थायी तौर पर अटैच किया था उन पर लोकायुक्त जाँच के समाचार के बाद यह पुनः अस्थायी व्यवस्था की गई है।
लेकिन मेरा स्पष्ट मत है कि विभाग के प्रमुख ज़िम्मेदारी लेकर स्क्रीनिंग करें ताकि स्थायी या अस्थायी व्यवस्था पूर्णतः निर्दोष रहे। pic.twitter.com/Bf59C7LFmU— Prahlad Singh Patel (@prahladspatel) January 12, 2024
Since then all recommendation of appointment of personal staff and personal assistant and OSD has been pending and ministers are running from pillar to post for getting their regular work done.
As a result, ministers don’t have adequate staff for regular work of calling officers to give instructions to officers or even to respond to letters of department..
“Without input from OSD or PS, the chances of making a wrong decision is high. We can’t run ministry though our personal or private staff. It has not only reduced efficiency of governance but is also making it difficult for ministers to implement the three-month target of work. Every CM wants their own loyal officer. Similarly, a minister should have liberty to pick their officer in their ministry,” a MP minister said.
A senior BJP leader, who worked under Shivraj Singh Chouhan, recounted an incident where a fellow minister had to take help from other bureaucrats for inputs on presentation as his personal private staff was not well-versed with the subject while the secretary was sick.
MP minister Narayan Singh Kushwaha told ThePrint that the general administration department has to pick and assign personal staff. “We have communicated our concern to the chief minister, and he has assured us to act on this matter,” he added.
A senior BJP functionary from Madhya Pradesh observed that every chief minister wants to pick up their officers in the system as a matter of fact. “Since Shivraj ji has ruled the state for more than 17 years, there are many officers close to him. Now, the new CM has to establish his own setup. He doesn’t want to make any mistake…that’s why the delay in making these appointments,” the functionary told ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)