How CBI heat forced Mulayam to sack his favourite minister in Akhilesh's cabinet
With CBI getting deeper into the multi-billion rupee mining scam in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday surprised all and sundry by getting his chief minister son Alhilesh Yadav to sack his blue-eyed-boy minister, Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, under whose direct patronage the racket was thriving.
Together with him, Akhilesh also dropped yet another minister, Raj Kishore Singh, who too was facing serious corruption charges in the panchayat raj ministry which he held so far.
Prajapati's alleged misdeeds and his nexus with the mining mafia was an open secret, yet he remained invincible simply because of the very special patronage extended to him by Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had often publicly showered praise on him .
It was his proximity to Mulayam that earned him elevation after elevation in the council of ministers. He was initially inducted as a minister of state. But no sooner did he earn infamy than he was given independent charge. And once his notoriety shot up, he was made a cabinet minister.
Prajapati's clout with the powers that be could be gauged by the fact that once a CBI probe was ordered by the high court in a PIL against his misdeeds, the state government moved heaven and earth to protect him.
 |
| Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav had complained about GP Prajapati to Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. [Photo: PTI] |
Only after the high court turned down the state government's plea for withdrawal of the CBI inquiry, did chief minister Akhilesh Yadav go ahead and sack Prajapati.
The sack order came while Mulayam was away in New Delhi. Talking to mediapersons there, he pleaded ignorance about the dropping of the two ministers and refused to comment on their alleged corrupt practices.
Significantly, at least six complaints were made to the Lok Ayukta against Prajapati's misdeeds. Besides, a number of PILs were moved against him in the High Court. While some complainants were intimidated to withdraw their complaints, a few were allegedly bought over by him.
The first major complaint made before the Lok Ayukta by an activist Om Shankar Dwivedi ran into as many as 1,750 pages. But it was withdrawn after the minister's goons threatened him with dire consequences.
Another serious complaint made to the Lok Ayukta by activist Nutar Thakur provoked the minister to hound her IPS officer husband Amitabh Thakur. The IG rank officer was allegedly intimidated by none other than Mulayam himself, compelling the IPS officer to lodge a complaint against the SP chief. Shortly thereafter, Thakur was suspended on trumped up charges. It was only with the intervention of the high court that the officer could be reinstated after months. According to official records, Prajapati lived "below poverty line" (BPL) until 2002. However, in 2012, the returns filed by him before the election commission described his assets to the tune of Rs. 1.84 crores.
Today, his assets are estimated to have crossed a whopping Rs 1,500 crores. It was another matter that these assets (84 immovable properties) were split into the names of 21 persons closely related or associated with him.
 |
| Gayatri Prasad Prajapati had earned infamy over his staggering corruption. [Photo: PTI] |
Stories about Prajapati making daily collections through private agents across large parts of the rocky Bundelkhand or the river basin areas were widely talked about. Strangely, Prajapati could get away with anything and even chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was heard expressing his disgust with him.
According to the ruling Samajwadi Party insiders, there were a couple of occasions when Akhilesh sought his father's permission to show Prajapati the door. But each time he was rebuked by the father who even went to the extent of declaring, "anybody disliking Prajapati is also my enemy".
Subsequently, Prajapati managed to get close to Akhilesh's rivals within the Yadav clan, who gave him greater strength to allow exponential increase in illegal mining across the state.
Action against Prajapati appears to be quite akin to the sacking of a BSP minister Baburam Kushwaha, a right hand man of then chief minister Mayawati, who chose to drop him like a hot potato once CBI got on to his trail in the infamous Rs 8,000 crore NRHM scam during the last regime.
What has been revealed so far is believed to be only a tip of the iceberg and many more skeletons were bound to come out of the closet once CBI goes deeper into what may be the biggest ever mining scam in the country's most populous state.