Babu’s spanner
Election drawing near, an influential Minister who is known to mint money from all sources using his clout over the Chief Minister, is now in difficulty. Recently, he has startled all by giving a quantum jump in the grade pay of his departmental officers from Rs 5,400 to Rs 9600. The logic is that the officers of the same department in Jammu & Kashmir are enjoying the same grade pay they would be now entitled to. It is learnt that the CM, known to fawn on the Minister, has cleared the relevant file. However, the bureaucrats have not been amused. A Principal Secretary refused to approve it. His logic is two-fold. Firstly, if such a hike of Rs 3400 in one go is approved for the officers of a particular department it would spur the officers of other departments to demand the same, resulting in the opening of the proverbial Pandora box. Besides, the senior bureaucrat dismissed the analogy with the things in Jammu and Kashmir, saying that the sensitive border state enjoys a special treatment thanks to the Article 370 being in force. He has chosen to send the file to the personnel department to fix things. However, things have turned embarrassing for the ‘generous’ minister. He is supposed to have taken a large sum of money from the beneficiaries in lieu of his generosity. Now they are at the receiving end of the Babu putting a spanner in the execution of the process.
Noose of gold
Noose tightening around the neck of the BJP MlA who allegedly purchased gold worth several crores soon after the PM announced the note ban, the Special Investigation team (SIT), constituted at the behest of the CM, has asked the income tax department to provide it the CCTV footages they have collected from the jewellery shops. The ruling party hopes to use the probe up to the hilt for the days left for the election to wrest the prestigious seat the redoubtable legislator has been winning in consecutive elections. To give the matter a further push, the head of the SIT has been changed. It is win-win for the ruling party. On one hand, it would nail down the MlA, known to be on the winning streak, and, on the other, it would try to deflate the ‘Mr Clean’ boast of the saffron camp.