BHOPAL: Just two days after returning to power, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government has started cancelling political appointments made to constitutional posts in the last days of the 15-month-old Kamal Nath led Congress regime in Madhya Pradesh.
The new government has started by cancelling the March 16 appointment of Congress state media in charge Shobha Oza as the head of the State Women Commission. Similar orders are likely soon to annul other appointments of Congress leaders to constitutional posts, including State OBC and Minority Commission, State Commission for Scheduled Castes, State Commission for Scheduled Tribes and the State Youth Commission.
Terming the BJP government’s decision to have been guided by the politics of vendetta, Oza said, “During the Kamal Nath government, no head of constitutional posts was changed. The appointments were made to those posts, only after they fell vacant. We’ll petition the court against the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government’s decision as the appointments to constitutional posts are made for a fixed three-year term.”
Meanwhile, the new government in the state has also started acting against administrative officers, who had acted against BJP leaders and workers during the Congress regime.
The 2012 batch IAS officer and Rajgarh district collector Nidhi Nivedita and deputy collector of the same district Priya Verma were shunted out from their present postings and attached to the state secretariat on Tuesday night.
Both Nivedita and Verma were targeted by the BJP as they had allegedly assaulted pro Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protestors, including BJP leaders in Biaora town of Rajgarh district on January 19.
Videos of some CAA supporters, including BJP leaders holding the national flags, being slapped by the two officers had gone viral over social media on January 19 evening. Some BJP leaders had subsequently been booked and arrested for misbehaving with the two female officials, including those who allegedly pulled the hair and kicked the deputy collector Verma.
Three days later, the BJP had organized a massive rally against the two women officials, where former minister Badrilal Yadav had made indecent remarks against the district collector. He was later booked and arrested for the remarks, but then set free on bail.
On Tuesday night, while Nivedita was shifted to the state secretariat in Bhopal as deputy secretary, her batch mate Niraj Kumar Singh was appointed the new district collector of Rajgarh.
In a related matter, another IAS officer and Municipal Commissioner of Rewa Municipal Corporation (RMC) Sabhajit Yadav too was shunted out and attached to the state secretariat in Bhopal. A 2006 batch IAS officer, Yadav was shifted to the state secretariat as Additional Secretary. The 2015 batch IAS officer Arpit Verma, who was the CEO of Rewa Zila Panchayat, has been given the additional charge of Municipal Commissioner of RMC till further orders.
A few months back, Yadav had hogged headlines for sending a Rs 5 crore recovery notice to ex-MP minister and local BJP MLA Rajendra Shukla (considered close to Shivraj Singh Chouhan) in connection with PM Awas Yojana related matters.