Lucknow: In-fighting within the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Uttar Pradesh (UP) unit was laid bare Friday, when three sitting members of Parliament (MP) from the state skipped a meeting to review development work in Kanpur, held under the chairmanship of UP assembly speaker Satish Mahana. The three have also sent a signed letter the divisional commissioner of Kanpur and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Wednesday, terming the meeting “against parliamentary traditions” and “unconstitutional”. The MPs claimed only the CM and minister in-charge can convene such meetings.
ThePrint has a copy of the letter.
While Kanpur MP Satyadev Pachauri was the first to protest against the meeting held Friday, he was soon joined by Akbarpur MP Devendra Singh Bhole and Misrikh MP Ashok Singh Rawat.
On 14 November, Mahana’s advisor, Mulkh Raj, had written to Kanpur divisional commissioner Raj Shekhar, to convene a meeting under Mahana’s chairmanship to review development work in the area.
Soon after, Kanpur Nagar chief development officer (CDO), Sudheer Kumar, wrote to all MPs and MLAs in Kanpur area, informing them about the meeting under Mahana’s chairmanship.
Eight-time legislator Mahana, is the sitting MLA from Maharajpur constituency which he has been winning since 2012. Before that he had repeatedly won the Kanpur Cantonment seat. According to information shared by him on social media, Friday’s meeting reviewed the progress of important projects in the Kanpur division — of which his constituency is a part — such as the Kanpur-Lucknow expressway, Ramadevi elevated road, an under-construction super-speciality hospital, among others.
जनपद कानपुर के मण्डलायुक्त सभाकक्ष में जनप्रतिनिधियों और जिलाधिकारी,मण्डलायुक्त, एवं वरिष्ठ अधिकारियों के साथ जनपद के सर्वांगीण विकास हेतु चल रहे कार्यों की समीक्षा बैठक की। बैठक में उपस्थित अधिकारियों को प्रत्येक कार्य को नियत समय एवं गुणवत्तापूर्ण कराने के निर्देश दिये। pic.twitter.com/HzxGTyRceL
— Satish Mahana (@Satishmahanaup) November 18, 2022
While Mahana termed it a meeting in tweets, news reports have claimed it to be more of a “power assertion”. According to BJP insiders, many leaders from the Mahana camp, such as BJP UP vice president Salil Vishnoi and the party’s regional secretary, Mohit Sonkar, were present.
ThePrint reached Mahana on call, but was told he was busy in a public meeting.
Meanwhile, Pachauri told ThePrint, “I have said that only the CM and the minister in-charge can hold such meetings. Now, the speaker is also convening such meetings. It is outside his purview to hold such a meeting. We have objected to this arrangement. Myself and MP Bhole ji have recently held a meeting with the central railway minister for development of Kanpur. Several other meetings have been held from time to time.”
Asked about their next step, Pachauri said that they wanted to make it clear that since the speaker’s advisor holds no constitutional post, he had no power to issue directions to the divisional commissioner.
“On what grounds has the speaker’s advisor issued directions to the divisional commissioner? And how can the divisional commissioner act on his directions? The post of divisional commissioner is a constitutional post and he can opt not to pay heed to such directions,” Pachauri added.
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Past disputes
In their letter Wednesday, Pachauri and Bhole wrote, “It is worth noting that the district development coordination and monitoring committee holds a district-level review meeting from time to time under the chairmanship of the MP. The minister in-charge of the district also holds review meetings and the UP assembly speaker’s advisor is issuing directions to hold a development-related meeting, which is against the parliamentary traditions which cannot be considered constitutional and correct in any manner.”
It added: “Here, it also has to be kept in mind that only the CM and the minister in-charge have the right to call a meeting.”
The two MPs, Pachauri and Bhole, had further sought directions for cancellation of the meeting convened by Mahana “with immediate effect”.
On Friday, Misrikh MP Ashok Singh Rawat too extended his support to the two MPs and distanced himself from the meeting. Kidwai Nagar MLA Mahesh Trivedi too remained absent.
Those who attended included BJP MLAs Neelima Katiyar, Surendra Maithani and Abhijeet Singh Sanga, Apna Dal (S) MLA Saroj Kuril, several leaders of the BJP Kanpur unit and two Samajwadi Party MLAs, Amitabh Bajpai and Rumi Hassan.
Kanpur municipal corporation mayor, Kanpur district panchayat chairman, Kanpur divisional commissioner, and Kanpur police commissioner and other officials from the area were also present.
The tussle within the BJP Kanpur unit assumes significance as another BJP MP from Kaiserganj, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, had recently hit out at the BJP government in UP stating that public representatives were silent and if one speaks, he or she would be termed a rebel. The MP had criticised his party’s government for shoddy preparations for floods that had wreaked havoc in at least 18 districts of Uttar Pradesh. *hyperlink)
In the past too, there were reports of in-fighting over Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and panchayat seats.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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