New Delhi: Expressing serious concern over repeated breaches of protocol in dealing with MPs and MLAs, the Uttar Pradesh government has once again directed officials and staff to treat public representatives with due courtesy during official interactions.
Officers have been instructed to welcome legislators, stand up when they enter, visit them on public matters, offer them water, hear them patiently and ensure appropriate action on their concerns.
In the government order issued Thursday, Chief Secretary S.P. Goyal reiterated these instructions to all additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries, secretaries, the DGP, divisional commissioners and district magistrates across the state.
According to sources in the government, recent feedback from BJP and RSS functionaries highlighted continuing resentment over the conduct of officials towards elected representatives.
“Officials are still not listening to public representatives and at times, even behave rudely with them,” a source said.
With elections approaching, this might have prompted the chief minister to direct senior bureaucrats to reiterate protocol guidelines for officials. However, top bureaucrats are themselves under pressure, as nearly “15 such reminders” have already been issued in the past, with little change visible at the ground level.
A senior UP BJP leader said these circulars would not solve the problem. “This cannot remain a routine formality. What is needed is strict and visible action against officials violating protocols.”
Sounding the poll bugle
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Hyderabad Sunday has more than one agenda: to sound the bugle call to BJP functionaries and ready them for the 2028 assembly elections in Telangana, and second, to seek the support of his NDA allies for the upcoming Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections.
Sources in the Jana Sena Party and Telugu Desam Party, both NDA allies, told ThePrint that the PM is visiting both Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan at their respective residencies.
While Modi is calling on Kalyan after the latter had a surgery last month, the visit to Naidu is on the pretext of planning for the PM’s upcoming visit to the Uttar Andhra region.
However, sources in both parties confirmed that the PM’s meeting is meant to request the TDP and JSP to play a constructive role in the municipal elections slated around August. The BJP is looking to win the GHMC election after a successful run in Thiruvananthapuram, where it won the municipal corporation.
Rationing helicopters
One of the most important duties of organisers of poll campaign events for the Congress in Kerala was “rationing” of helicopters to ferry prominent state and national leaders to address multiple constituencies in short spans of time.
With most prominent leaders preferring air travel rather than spending hours on the road travelling between constituencies, demand outpaced supply.
One Congress leader said the high demand forced them to maximise the utility of every available chopper.
Senior leader Priyanka Gandhi landed in Kozhikode and then flew by chopper to Nilambur (about 60 km away). While she was addressing rallies and attending other events, her helicopter was repurposed to ferry multiple other leaders across the state, returning just in time for her departure.
This high-pressure environment required constant movement, with organisers ensuring that helicopter rotors essentially never stopped during the campaign period.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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