Jharkhand Assembly election: Too many questions haunt the CM and BJP

Chief Minister Raghubar Das can pat himself on the back for completing his full term unlike his predecessors. This is the first government in the state’s 19-year-old history to have completed its full term. Das can also draw some satisfaction that he has not faced any serious charge of corruption. With the Opposition divided and in disarray, he appears to be reasonably confident that he can get a second term.

But despite such favourable headwinds, Jharkhand BJP is groping for populist issues. The government headed by Das is widely perceived to have failed to manage the state’s finances well or to curb corruption among bureaucrats and in government offices. Das is also accused to have been a poor administrator, ordering officials to enquire into corruption charges against each other.

The then Chief Secretary Rajbala Verma was accused by the Opposition of graft and the then DGP D.K. Pandey was accused of presiding over a fake encounter of 12 innocent civilians and subsequent cover-up. Additional DGP Anurag Gupta was accused of complicity in the cash-for-votes scandal during the 2016 Rajya Sabha elections.

The CM ordered that Verma should probe charges against the ADG (Special Branch) while the latter was asked to investigate charges against the chief secretary. The powerful chief secretary was said to have ignored as many as 30 notices sent by the CBI in connection with the fodder scam when she was the DC at Chaibasa. But despite the government asking her to respond, and despite the Election Commission holding that there was a prima facie case to proceed against the ADG and Ajay Kumar, Political Advisor to the Chief Minister, for their dubious role in the Rajya Sabha election, nothing happened to either of them.

If any departmental inquiry was conducted, EC claimed it was not aware of it. The inquiry into the fake encounter also made no headway. Twelve dreaded Maoists including four children were said to have been killed in a fierce encounter in Palamu. While the inquiry was stalled for two years, before ADG ( CID) M.V. Rao could initiate the inquiry in pursuance of a directive from the high court, he was transferred to Delhi within three weeks of his joining.

The CS, who was herself facing an inquiry, was asked by the CM to look into the request for prosecution sanction against the then MD of the Housing Board, Avinash Kumar, for alleged irregularities. The sanction had been sought by the Anti-Corruption Bureau but the CS gave him a clean chit and the request was turned down.

Neither the Chief Secretary nor the ADG was suspended pending inquiry. Nor were they shifted from their respective posts. Both went on to complete their tenure and retired from Government.

One of the ministers, food and civil supplies minister Sarayu Roy, was also vocal in demanding action against the officials. Roy, who was described as a ‘friend’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has however been denied a party ticket. He has filed his nomination to contest against the chief minister from Jamshedpur (East).

Avinash Kumar’s house had been raided by the CBI in 2009 and he was accused of amassing wealth disproportionate to his income then. But it is Das who is said to have bailed him out. In yet another bizarre case, the bureaucratic grapevine holds that the present DGP, K.N. Chaubey, was a co-accused with a union minister in the UPA in a civil aviation case. But he continues to be in harness.

The much publicised Global Investors’ Summit in 2017 came a cropper. While ‘Momentum Jharkhand’ was said to have signed 209 MoUs and attracted rupees three lakh crore of investment to the state, followed in the footsteps of ‘Vibrant Gujarat’. No investment is seen on the ground.

The very next year in 2018, the state government claimed to have signed MoUs worth Rs 62 thousand crore during the Jharkhand Investment Summit in Mumbai. But investment on the ground has remained elusive.

Das is also accused of mismanaging the state’s finances. As many as 21 iron-ore mines, cash cow to the state government, are officially closed under punitive orders for violation of different norms, rules and regulations. The losses to the state exchequer is said to have been to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore.

The state government was expected to cancel the lease of the iron ore mines and hold fresh auction of mining rights. But for reasons well known or not known, no step has been taken.

But Jharkhand was ranked at number three state by the World Bank on the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ index. Rural Jharkhand was declared Open Defecation Free in 2018 and the state was ranked 1st and 2nd in Swachh ‘Sarvekshan’ in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

Will it cut ice with the voters?