BHOPAL: Just 11 months after capturing power in Madhya Pradesh, kin and supporters of cabinet ministers in the Kamal Nath government are making life hell for government servants in the state.
Two cases in which kin and supporters of ministers indulged in violence and abusive behaviour against government officials were reported from Indore and Sheopur districts on Tuesday.
The first case took place in the state’s commercial capital Indore, where Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) staff led by deputy commissioner MS Chouhan were removing hoardings put up in Sanyogitaganj to mark the birthday of health minister and local MLA Tulsi Silawat.
Just as they were being removed (in accordance with the Kamal Nath cabinet’s October 31 decision to remove unauthorised hoardings), a group of men, reportedly including some relatives and supporters of the health minister, arrived on the spot, caught hold of the IMC staff and beat them up with lathis.
The health minister’s supporters also verbally abused the IMC deputy commissioner MS Chauhan and even abused journalists and photographers present on the spot.
Taking the entire episode seriously, Indore Mayor (also BJP MLA from Indore-IV) Malini Gaur ordered the lodging of an FIR against those involved in the attack and abusive behaviour with the IMC staff.
“A case has been registered on Wednesday against four men, including Vicky Khatik, Kapil Kaushik, Chandu Silawat and Rahul Silawat under Sections 353, 332, 294, 506 and 34 of IPC and Section 3 of MP Sampati Virupan Nivaran Adhiniyam. None, however, have been arrested,” in-charge of Indore’s Sanyogitaganj police station NS Raghuvanshi said.
The incident revived memories of the June 2019 cricket bat attack on an IMC official by BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya’s Indore-III MLA son Akash Vijayvargiya, who was then arrested within a few hours by police.
The second incident occurred in the state’s Gwalior-Chambal region, where MP animal husbandry minister Lakhan Singh Yadav’s All India Youth Congress secretary nephew Sanjay Singh Yadav threatened to beat the CEO of the Vijaypur Janpad Panchayat Joshua Peter with shoes while talking to him on the phone.
The matter didn’t end there, as another man Ankit Mudgal (allegedly a close aide of the minister’s nephew) rang the CEO twice and abused him over the phone, besides telling the official that akin to previous CEOs and engineers who were beaten with shoes, the present CEO too won’t be spared.
Peter, who hails from the Scheduled Tribe category, has submitted a complaint to the local police in Sheopur district against the minister’s nephew Sanjay Yadav and Sanjay’s supporter Ankit Mudgal. In the complaint, the official also said that he was feeling unsafe after Tuesday afternoon's development.
However, no case has been registered so far by police in Sheopur district.
The animal husbandry minister Lakhan Singh Yadav, when asked by journalists about the matter in Bhopal on Wednesday, defended his nephew. “My nephew Sanjay Singh Yadav is the All India Youth Congress secretary and never behaves in such a manner. From what I’ve heard from the audio clip of the telephonic conversation, it was the concerned official’s language which provoked my nephew. I’m monitoring from my end the complaint submitted by the official to police,” he said.