Golden silence and sword of damocles
Unlike a fair-weather friend the type of which abounds everywhere, Chief Minister Harish Rawat’s industrial advisor Ranjit Rawat stood by the embattled leader with unshakable loyalty during the turbulent phase the State went through since the fateful evening of March 18. As the crisis deepened with opposition setting out to poach MlAs from the other side, Ranjit took it upon himself the task of spiriting away all the Congress MlAs to undisclosed places. He himself stayed there as security officer and made sure that the area remained unapproachable to keep the poachers at bay. He was so engrossed in his momentous work that he declined to meet the so- called middlemen who later sneakily made the sting CD in which Rawat was purportedly shown as brokering a deal with the rebels. Desperate Harish Rawat decided to go himself along with another close confidante to strike the deal with the middlemen. Notably, the close confidantes of Harish Rawat kept hawk-eye vigil on the leader, making him nearly out of bounds for the officers and the media persons between February 2014 and March 2016. They erected prohibitive cordon around the leader as if they are more dedicated then his personal security officers (PSO). However, they failed when their eyes needed to be at their fiercest. This was when Rawat was meeting the middlemen. Things were being recorded on camera at the behest of the ‘close confidante’ who was accompanying Rawat. After the air of uncertainty cleared Ranjit emerged and tried to befriend the media to show as if nothing had happened. The media appreciated his zeal to rise to the stupendous challenge without out making fuss. He was applauded as an exemplary specimen of silent worker, not given to bluster.
babus tense as rawat gains power
Bureaucrats who switched loyalty away from Harish Rawat during the time the State was under the President’s Rule are now spending tense days with the sword of Damocles hanging over their terrified heads. The Babudom is abuzz with speculations that they would be sidelined in upcoming bureaucratic reshuffle. loyalty to the leader being deemed as the yardstick of efficiency, they must face consequences. Things are same with the cops. Rawat himself lamented when the crisis was deepening that the cops who he had propped up once refused to stand by him as they chose to watch and wait for the dust to settle. Rawat was justified to vent annoyance as no cop was found pro-active to pre-empt the BJP leaders from poaching on the Congress and PDF MlAs. So why should he shower kindness on the ‘traitors’IJ The question is justified. But things can be seen from another angle too. During the President’s Rule, all the Babus and the cops were under the lens of Rajbhawan. But the CM is unconvinced. Why should they have treated a former BJP CM as the would-be-CM when things were in a fluxIJ They should have stood by him like a rock even when things seemed to be turning bleaker for him. For, don’t they know that he is the boss, in power or out of powerIJ