Baghel Hits The Ground Running

The Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Begins His Innings With A Flourish, But His Aggressive Approach Could Unsettle The Establishment.

- Rahul Noronha

Books, covering a range interests and subjects, in English as well as in Hindi, line the two shelves behind Bhupesh Baghel’s sprawling desk in the chief minister’s Mantralaya chamber in Naya Raipur. The Men Who Ruled India, the seminal work by Indian Civil Service Officer Philip Mason, occupies pride of place. Mandatory reading at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, it is an account of how a handful of ICS men ruled over the entire Indian subcontinent. In a reversal of roles, it is the top bureaucracy in Chhattisgarh, all-powerful in the 15 years preceding the change in government, who are now running scared in the Baghel dispensation.

Having delivered 68 seats for the Congress in the 90-member Vidhan Sabha, the PCC president was more than a deserving choice for the chief ministership of the state. One of his first tasks on assuming office has been to remove officers closely identified with the previous regime. The chief secretary and the DGP were among the first to go. “The bureaucracy is meant to serve the people, but in Chhattisgarh, they were serving four or five people. This has to change,” he explains.

Baghel’s intentions may be benign, but it is generating the impression that he is getting rid of even meritorious officers, if they happen to have been appointed by the previous government. It has left the bureaucracy in the state edgy, unsure of who might be targeted next. “The CM needs to restore the morale of the civil services,” says a senior IAS officer at the Mantralaya. “After all, it’s the same lot he has to get work out of.” Baghel’s ‘crusade against corruption’ has prompted former chief minister Raman Singh to term it a ‘badlapur ki rajneeti’ instead of the ‘badlaav ki rajniti’ the Congress had promised.