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Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
The underlying rift between Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lalji Tandon came out into the open with the chief minister issuing a clarification on Wednesday stating the reasons behind the drastic administrative shake-up in Lucknow.
"It was the question of deteriorating law and order for which I would be answerable to the people of the state capital, which is also the prime minister's constituency," Mayawati told an unusually prolonged press conference in Lucknow.
Tandon, on the other hand, maintained, "Transfer is no issue for me; I do not know why the chief minister should be giving out such a detailed clarification on it."
While claiming that she had given Tandon a free hand to let officers of his choice remain, she said, "But when the crime graph continued to rise, I repeatedly urged Mr Tandon over the past one and a half month to tell his boys to pull up their socks."
"I even reminded him that if the officers failed to deliver the goods, I would have to take action and finally when they still did not pay any heed to my repeated warnings, I was left with no choice but to give marching orders to the entire team," she added.
Referring to the controversy over the suspension of Lucknow district police chief B B Bakshi, who is considered close to Tandon, she said, "I decided to suspend him only on realising that the fellow was absolutely ignorant about the names of his own subordinates."
"When I took over it was Mr Tandon who told me that Bakshi was a very good officer so I must retain him. I readily agreed to let him be there; and because Mr Tandon wanted the then Lucknow district magistrate to be replaced by his own nominee, I obliged. But after all, they were required to perform, which they failed to do," she said.
Throughout the press conference, Mayawati was clearly intending to show that the state BJP leaders were inconsequential for her and that she enjoyed a one-to-one rapport with Vajpayee.
On each of the two issues -- supply of free textbooks to students up to class VIII and declaration of drought in the state -- that have evoked sharp differences between the coalition partners, Mayawati went about claiming how she had preferred to promptly seek the intervention of the prime minister.
"When I drew the prime minister's attention to the fact that I was only following the norms laid down by his government in issuing free textbooks to students belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, he readily conceded that I was right in withdrawing the facility granted by the former chief minister (Rajnath Singh) to all and sundry," Mayawati said.
On the question of Cabinet expansion too, the chief minister once again blamed the delay on BJP.
"I have told Mr Tandon to furnish a list of BJP legislators to be included in the council of ministers and I will carry out the expansion within the next 24 hours," she added.
But a visibly peeved Tandon threw the ball back in her court when he said, "There is no democratic tradition of such a list being given by a coalition partner without the date of expansion being finalised."
"Let her announce the date for expansion and we will give her our list, which is ready with us," he said.
About the setting up of a coordination committee to resolve the inter-party differences, Mayawati claimed, "Such a committee already exists." On the contrary, Tandon said, "There was urgent need for the formation of such a committee."
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