The State Government’s recent order of withdrawing body guards and cancel arms licenses of the public representatives who were found to be interfering with the Government work has stirred up hornet’s nest.Criticising the Government's direction, leader of Opposition Hemant Soren on Thursday termed it as a "gag order" and demanded its immediate withdrawal.Congress State President Sukhdeo Bhagat had also on Wednesday criticised the Government for issuing such an order.
Soren, who also happens to be the working president of the JMM, has asked Chief Minister Raghunbar Das to clear his stand over the issue or else the JMM will be forced to launch statewide protest against the ‘Tughlaqui Farman’ (diktat).Soren, while talking to media persons here, also questioned whether the existing laws related to the issue were not adequate to deal with the situation, or whether the law and order situation has completely collapsed in the state."We too agree that government officials discharge their duties fearlessly. let them get adequate security. But the existing laws are sufficient for (them)," Soren said in his letter to the Chief Minister, a copy of which was released to the media here.
“Whether, the officials are feeling completely helpless or insecure under the State Government that such a‘Tughlaqui farman’ was issued by the Chief Secretary (CS),” said Soren.Soren further added that the situation is really unfortunate and alarming as it appears that the state was moving towards a situation like undeclared emergency. “It is now clear that the State Government wants to suppress the voice raised by the people as any public representative will now think twice before approaching an official to solve their problems,” said the leader of Opposition.
“Moreover, the public representatives will now also be reluctant to expose the illegal activities being done by the Government officials apprehending that their body guards and other facilities will be withdrawn by the state government,” added Soren.Notably, Chief Secretary Rajiv Gauba, in a bid to provide security and boost up the morale of the Government employees, on Tuesday had directed all the DCs and SPs to ensure that no nuisance was created for officials disposing government work.
The CS had also directed them to review security provided to the public representatives and influential persons and withdraw it if they were found to be misbehaving with public servants. Gauba had also asked them to review the necessity and relevance of arms of such individuals and cancel their license if required.Remarkably, there have been several instances across the state where politicians, contractors and businessmen have misbehaved with the Government officials threatening them of dire consequences on the basis of their political connections. The recent example is of former minister Chandrashekhar Dubey, who was arrested for allegedly misbehaving with Garhwa superintendent of police (SP) Priyadarshi Alok. Dubey, has been booked for hurting others through verbal abuse and damaging public property and official documents.
Similar allegations were made against former ministers Yogendra Sao, KN Tripathy as well as MlA Dhullu Mahto.