SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
Sujay Gupta
The wild west of Western UP has two things flowing in its veins. The vast fields of sugar cane and politics, which is not always sugar-coated. It is also the land of wrestlers and akaharas where both bahubalis (ganglords), and fighters are born. The toughness of the land also curates a different kind of a politician,- tough, nonsense, dry and at times even Machiavellian.
Chaudhary Charan Singh, Ajit Singh, the Yadavs - Mulayam and son Akhilesh, and of course the queen B of Dalit Politics, Mayawati or behenji came from these parts.
Satyapal Malik was born in Baghpat and grew up and became a student leader in Meerut in this belt. He comes from the same land of caste and cane politics. From a land where no quarter is asked for and none is given. So even if he has traversed, like many from these parts, across nationalist (Congress), Socialist( Janta Dal and allied parties) and now the BJP, fronts, he retains the essence of tough politics of this belt.
So when he became the first career politician to be picked as Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, it signified a change in the Centre’s approach towards handling Kashmir from the time it had retired bureaucrats or officers from the armed forces or police as Governors.
Cut to Goa: For Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, dealing with a Governor, who is clearly not on his side of the fence and whose career span almost equals his age, isn’t going to be easy or laid back. The fissures have started due to the Governor's apparent dissatisfaction over the Chief Minister’s management of the COVID situation. The discontent would have been under wraps had it not been for Chief Minister Sawant’s explanation to the waiting media outside Raj Bhavan about his meeting with the Governor. Sawant made it a point to stop his convoy to speak journalists. He said that the Governor was upset about negative media reports about the State’s handling of the crisis.
To which the Governor reacted, on local television saying, “I cannot condemn (CM Sawant's statement) with strong words, but this is highly improper and no civilised person should do or say so or put words in anyone’s mouth. I have been in public life for 50 years and never had any complaints with the media. In fact, I called for a meeting after I read about the state’s rising cases in the press.”
Let’s pause to let this sink in. It’s a matter of small detail that this is a BJP-ruled state. The words used to describe the CM's words are ‘improper’ and it has alluded that the CM isn’t “civilised”. The Chief Ministers camp is expectedly upset because the principle of propriety could cut both ways.
What is important though is not the significance or otherwise of this incident. It’s going to be the beginning of a pattern where Malik will be more assertive as long as he’s here. At a time when politics and muscle-flexing were at its lowest ebb, due to the COVID crisis, Governor Satyapal Malik has pitch-forked Raj Bhavan as an alternate power centre, where politically energetic opposition players, as well as elements within the BJP, will genuflect for political solace and oxygen.
So in a sense, Governor Malik has added a new narrative to the Goan political cauldron much to the delight of observers and political watchers since the interplay is between a BJP government appointed Governor and a BJP handpicked Chief Minister to lead Goa after the passing of Manohar Parrikar. And for sure, political fishermen have arrived, both within the party and from outside to fish in these troubled waters.
But if you see the tough politics infused land he comes from, this Governor will only up the ante. He is nothing if not a political animal. And yes institutions don’t cage him leading him to cross boundaries and lines, in his speech and deportment
Then, there is an X factor which gives him more teeth. He is a hardliner against corruption and malpractices going by some clearly recorded instances in public life.
-As Bihar Governor, he was asked by Prime Minister Modi to come to Delhi for a chat. On reaching he was told to go to Kashmir as Governor and leave right away. Malik did protest that he hadn’t even brought a change of clothes, an excuse too feeble for the Prime Minister to even lend him an ear. On arriving in Srinagar, he found two files on his gubernatorial table one of which was on a massive power project. He found that the costs were escalated many times above the base price and there were not so gentle nudges for him to clear it. He took the file to Delhi and showed it to Modi who told him to do what he felt best. Mallik returned to the valley to scrap the file and the project. It is learnt that a senior BJP and RSS functionary was backing the project too and his disappointment also reached the PMO.
-Then, Malik found himself in a direct path of the Prime Minister when he said after dissolving the J and K Assembly. That the Narendra Modi-led Centre wanted him to appoint Sajad Lone as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and hence he took the decision of dissolving the assembly after Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti staked claim to form a government along with the support of her rival Omar Abdullah’s National Conference (NC) and the Congress.
“If I had listened to ‘Delhi’, I would have become dishonest in the history”, he said speaking at a function in Gwalior. A retraction came later from his Raj Bhavan that there was no pressure from the PM but the damage had been done.
Knowing the impact of his words, he actually then said at the same function "You don’t know when will I be transferred. I will not lose my job, but the threat of transfer remains,”
In October 2018 he cancelled the Group Mediclaim Health Insurance Scheme for employees. This wasn’t an ordinary move. The contract was awarded to Anil Ambani’s Reliance General Insurance. He said it was ‘full of fraud’ and its implementation was erroneous going to the extent of saying tenders were opened ‘secretly on a holiday to suit a particular company.’
This brazenness comes from not just a political past but the circumstance of his humble origins. One of his favourite phrases is “I come from a one and a half room house. There’s is nothing that can be taken away from me”. It is this streak which makes him build bridges across party lines, often confiding in opposition leaders making strong yet disparaging remarks against BJP ministers and functionaries.
He has, it is reliably learnt done this even in Goa where he has spoken critically against a BJP organisation head honcho, who was sent into the political wilderness during Laxmikant Parsekar’s tenure as CM but has re-emerged to dictate party and government of late.
He isn’t too awed by bureaucrats and other species of babus. Those in J and K will vividly remember the controversy he courted when he called out to terrorists not to kill security forces but kill corrupt who have looted the state
He has reportedly taken umbrage at a very senior officer close to the mining lobby, allowing iron ore transportation during COVID times, hitting at both the CM and the officer in one shot. In one interaction with a political player, he reportedly said if this activity went on, opponents would call the government a “loot aur soot ki sarkar” The word ‘soot’ was in reference to mining dust according to the person he said this to.
The lines are drawn. It’s still early to say who is right and who is not. But unlike the previous resident of Cabo Raj Nivas, the poetry writing, scholarly Mridula Sinha, Satyapal Malik is very much the man who belongs to the soil he came from- the political akhara of Meerut.
Sujay Gupta is the Consulting Editor Herald Publications and tweets @sujaygupta0832
