The brutal killing of a PWD Executive Engineer in UP by a ruling party MLA for his refusal to pay handsome amount for the birthday celebration of the Chief Minister Mayawati shows how criminals masquerading as politicians have made the lives of honest government officers like the victim Manoj Kumar Gupta most insecure in UP. The criminal BSP MLA, Shekhar Tiwari has been arrested with his accomplices and National Security Act has been imposed against him. It is reported that the MLA has confessed to the crime and gave hoary details of the entire operation of battering the Engineer to death in his residence. Mayawati has distanced herself from the BSP MLA who had criminal records in the past. It may be noted that as many as eight BSP MLAs and four BSP Ministers had criminal records and therefore extortion and insult to public servants were regular occurrence in UP. Chief Minister Mayawati is also under CBI enquiry for her disproportionate assets collected mainly as birth day gifts generously given by dishonest government servants and forcibly extorted by her BSP MLAs and workers.
UP had the dubious distinction of one of its Chief Secretaries arrested on charges of acquiring assets beyond known sources of income. The IAS Association of UP had adopted a unique annual exercise of selecting the most corrupt member by secret ballot to check growing corruption among the members. A BSP Minister, Anand Sen Yadav had to resign following a kidnapping charge of a Dalit girl against him. Recently a former Chairman of Uttar Pradesh Fisheries DevelopmentCorporation,Ram Mohan Garg was booked on charges of sexually exploiting and blackmailing a woman. If the administration is corrupt from the top, common people would be the harassed lot. The UP Engineers Association has threatened to go on strike on this issue. While Samajwadi Party has demanded CBI enquiry and central intervention Mayawati has rejected the demand for CBI probe. The situation in UP is going from bad to worse while the Chief Minister was more concerned projecting herself as the future Prime Minister egged on by some opportunistic political parties. If she really wants to endear herself with the vast majority of the people she should free herself from the grip of criminal-politicians and protect the honest officers of the State to work without fear or favour.
