Short-but-shining Sankaranarayanan showed how to deliver
Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi Monday, January 18, 2010
Six months back when he took oath as the Governor of Jharkhand, K Sankaranarayanan had hit the headlines by briefing the media his priorities. Many had doubted him then.
Six months back when he took oath as the Governor of Jharkhand, K Sankaranarayanan had hit the headlines by briefing the media his priorities. Many had doubted him then.
He soon proceeded to dust off the files and put up a “Do Not Disturb” board outside his office. Jharkhand under the President’s Rule had got a new task master.
That remained an unalloyed image of the Sankaranarayanan’s governorship. Skeptic Opposition doubted his appointment as a desperate bid of the Congress to revive the image of the party in Jharkhand and the priorities, he stated, ‘as poll promises”.
However, the Governor was quick to dispel the Opposition’s fears. “I am not here to do politics. If I ever wish I would go to Kerala,” he had said. And when he left he did not leave behind the trail of controversy and muck unlike his immediate predecessor.
“Zero tolerance to corruption,” he said and orders were soon followed. CBI conducted massive raids against Avinash Kumar; former OSD of former Governor Syed Sibtey Razi, Rajesh Kumar; PA of Razi and Health Secretary Pradeep Kumar. Those brazen former ministers of the State Government who never cared for law despite corruption charges were lined up for punishment. Vigilance bureau expedited investigations against them. Ainosh Ekka, Harinarayan Rai and Kamlesh Singh landed in judicial custody. Another Bhanu Pratap Shahi and Bandhu Tirkey are too meek now.
Here was a Governor belonging to a different school of politics: Picked from the Raj Bhavan of Nagaland for the Raj Bhavan of Jharkhand, where the office of the Governor had no more remained the dressing room of virtue.
Administrative accountability, transparency, zero tolerance to the corruption and streamlining of the PDS system and NREGA, he had listed as his priorities. Sankaranarayanan showed the Jharkhand establishment how to work. And soon the poor of the State began to receive 35 kg of food grains through PDS shops.
System left him baffled and he was honest to accept fault. “I was surprised to note that not a grain of PDS sugar had been lifted and distributed since the creation of Jharkhand.”
Nevertheless, some went overboard suspecting that he could not get the feel of the woe of the poor and tribal, because, he did not know Hindi. He could speak either Malyalam or English. Man quoting this was Karia Munda, the Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha. Sankaranarayanan was unabashed in telling that he did not know Hindi. “Can language be a barrier to understand the pain? I know the pain of the people.”
Nevertheless, some went overboard suspecting that he could not get the feel of the woe of the poor and tribal, because, he did not know Hindi. He could speak either Malyalam or English. Man quoting this was Karia Munda, the Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha. Sankaranarayanan was unabashed in telling that he did not know Hindi. “Can language be a barrier to understand the pain? I know the pain of the people.”
A peaceful Assembly election, and a peaceful accession of Shibu Soren as the head of the NDA-JMM-AJSU post-poll coalition Government in Jharkhand was perhaps the best thing. In Jharkhand where coalition politics and Governments often remained unruly, he never allowed Raj Bhavan to be used as the bed of politics and make and break of coalition. Intention to this, he had announced on the very first day. “I had been in Nagaland where I conducted election free and fair. I promise to do it in Jharkhand.”
But the pitfalls of his regime were obvious and too many. The BJP protested when he said that an elected Government would be in place by the month of January 2010. The BJP interpreted it as a move of the Congress to delay the Assembly election.
One of his zealous advisors TP Sinha ran to church to seek cooperation of the missionaries in food grains distribution. Many doubted Sankaranarayanan’s secular credential and termed it a bid to coax Christian vote banks before the election. The murder of special branch officer Francis Induwal by Maoists put a question over his administration and what he had said a few week back about red rebels. “Naxals do not kill honest officials,” Sankaranarayanan had said to the State officials in a programme at Administrative Training Institute.
A small State, too many contradictions, thousands of problems and no easy solutions, Sankaranarayanan paved some ways, proving how wrong doubters were.
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