PUNE: The Congress party-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) alliance-led Democratic Front (DF) government is sailing in rough waters for a number of wrong decisions taken by NCP ministers holding various departments.
With elections to the Lok Sabha round the corner, indications are enough that this time, the alliance would find it rather difficult to elect sizeable number of candidates to the lower house of Parliament.
The NCP ministers’ actions have placed the party president Sharad Pawar in an embarrassing position. People in the state have reacted strongly to some of the political moves of the NCP state leaders and some ugly actions by party workers, said a senior Congress leader. “The alliance will have to pay dearly in the Lok Sabha elections for the unwise actions of some NCP ministers and leaders,” he said.
Two years ago, the DF government led by Vilasrao Deshmukh got a stick from the Bombay High Court for granting extensions in service to former state Director General of Police P.S. Pasricha and then Mumbai Police Commissioner D.N. Jadhav. Since the home department is headed by the NCP, it was former Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil who took the decision for giving these police officers extension, when it was not required.
The NCP did not learn a lesson and Patil again committed the blunder of appointing a junior IPS officer Anami Roy to the top post of the state director general, superseding three senior IPS officers. Two days ago the Bombay High Court again pulled the state government and squashed the appointment of Roy.
And now trouble is brewing again for the state government; this time with the Medical Education and Drug Department Minister Rajesh Tope, of NCP, the secretary of the department Bhushan Gagrani and director of the Medical Education and Research Dr. Wasudev Tayade allegedly committing the hara-kiri of appointing Dr. Arun Jamkar, a professor in government medical college in Kolhapur, as the ad hoc dean of Asia’s biggest government-run Sassoon General Hospital in Pune.
Freedom fighters, social activists, journalists, and doctors have written strongly to the minister and the secretary, not to appoint Dr. Jamkar again to the hospital where he had served for 28 long years, and was just transferred to Kolhapur three month ago. Bringing him back would make mockery of the Maharashtra Government Servants Regulation of Transfers and Prevention of Delay in Discharge of Official Duties Act, 2005, they pointed out. This was also brought to the notice of veteran social activist Anna Hazare, when a delegation met him recently. Hazare promised to take this up with the government.
However, the NCP minister Tope and secretary Gagrani is alleged to have ignored all the protests, stating that there was no wrong in appointing Jamkar and sent the file to the Chief Minister Ashok Chavan for his approval. This issue has snowballed into a major controversy and public anger against the NCP.
Sassoon General Hospital is already in the midst of several controversies from financial irregularities, administration flip-flops, security lapses, incompetent administrators, alleged scandals in drug purchase, gross violations of Right to Information Act, and misuse of Public Ledger Accounts (PLA).
Sources said that Hazare is annoyed by the acts of the minister and secretary and more of the misadventures in Asia’s biggest hospital and may take it up with the chief minister directly. Activists are also contemplating to file a Public Interest Litigation against the state government in this aspect in the Bombay High Court, and this would further embarrass the state government and trigger anti-NCP wave in the people, said a NCP leader.
