Clash of the OSDs at Karnataka Bhavan
The officers on special duty (OSDs) to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D.K. Shivakumar have been pulled up for allegedly getting into an altercation at the Karnataka Bhavan in New Delhi.
Shivakumar’s OSD H. Anjaneya has accused Assistant Resident Commissioner and Siddaramaiah’s OSD Mohan Kumar C. of trying to assault him.
In a letter to Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh, Anjaneya alleged Kumar had been obstructing him from discharging his duties from the day the latter assumed his current role. “Today, he told me in his chamber that he would remove his boot and hit me and also came to hit me in front of the other staff,” Anjaneya wrote in his complaint dated 22 July.
He even went on to say that Kumar should be held responsible for any harm that befalls him. The letter was widely circulated Friday on various social media platforms.
Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, whose supporters have in the past sparred publicly over the claim to the top chair in the state, were in Delhi Friday.
Those aware of the developments said the altercation between the two officers took place when the Karnataka Bhavan was brimming with officials.
Anjaneya alleged Kumar also assaulted another officer in the past and that Kumar spoke disrespectfully to seniors since he is OSD to the chief minister.
Chief Secretary Rajneesh has ordered a probe into the allegations.
Bihar BJP chief in Kishor’s crosshairs
Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal is in the crosshairs of Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor, who along with family members of the founders of Mata Gujri Medical (MGM) College in Kishanganj, has accused Jaiswal of taking control of the minority Sikh college “through illegal, unlawful means”.
Jaiswal and the BJP have sought to play downplay the charges, calling them baseless.
BJP insiders say the party doesn’t want to give ‘unnecessary attention’ to Kishor.
Sources in Jan Suraaj, however, say Kishor is now preparing to turn the heat on Jaiswal with fresh “damning evidence”.
‘Re-union’ on the cards?
After a prolonged phase of strained relations with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP ex-MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh met him at the former’s official residence in Lucknow recently. The about 30-minute closed-door meeting has stirred speculation in political circles. Singh downplayed the buzz, saying Adityanatah is the chief minister of the state and so a meeting was bound to happen, and it happened.
Individuals close to Brij Bhushan say he got a call from New Delhi, asking him to repair ties with Adityanath, days after the CM met the BJP’s top leadership.
Brij Bhushan earlier spoke to Adityanath on the phone when his son Karan Bhushan Singh, the BJP MP from Kaiserganj, visited the CM. Adityanath had then asked Karan to call his father who was at one point accused of sexual harassment by multiple woman wrestlers.
A Delhi court in May accepted a closure report filed by the Delhi Police, which sought to cancel a sexual harassment case by a wrestler, who was a minor at the time of lodging the complaint, against the former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief.
In recent years, Singh has been critical of the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh. His praise in public of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, whom he once called his “younger brother”, and frequent swipes at the BJP leadership have long positioned him as Adityanath’s critic. But a possible re-union of the two Thakur leaders may be on the cards.
Access control
In a bid to control access and bring in automation with regard to who enters government buildings, the central government is expanding its smart card systems.
The smart cards control system now exists for entry to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Ministry of Defence, where the employees’ Smart ID card is scanned at the entry gate. The system verifies their credentials in real time, and if authenticated the gate opens automatically. Now, the government is bringing in the same system for a number of other ministries including home, external affairs, department of personnel and training, office of the principal scientific advisor part of the Common Central Secretariat (CCS)-3 building.
An order by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) asking employees to apply online for their smart cards was issued on 24 July.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)