Mulayam Singh Yadav’s growing dislike of bureaucrats; Is Ansari a victim?

Hamid Ansari: Aiming Right?

ON UPA-II dinner party on Tuesday, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav hogged the limelight as Congress leaders wooed him by all means. The seating arrangement at the dais was changed at the last minute to give Yadav a prominent seat along with UPA chairwoman Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a bureaucrat-turned politician. But BoI here presents a few facts on Yadav’s growing dislike of bureaucrats at large and how that will snap former diplomat Hamid Ansari's elevation to Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Only recently, Netaji, as Yadav is fondly called by his supporters, was disappointed as UP governor BL Joshi asked him to meet him alone, and not with his supporters, according to media reports. Joshi incidentally is a former IPS officer.

Yadav told media recently that he was not in favour of a bureaucrat being given a constitutional post clearly indicating his reservation against Vice-President and former IFS Hamid Ansari’s elevation as President of India. Incidentally, Ansari belongs to the Muslim community, a key constituent of SP’s vote bank. Also, Ansari hails from Ghazipur in Eastern UP. But Yadav is so crucial to UPA and the fate of the Presidential poll that his veto will snap Ansari's possible elevation to Rashtrapati Bhawan.

But Mulayam Singh Yadav’s anger towards bureaucracy is only a recent phenomenon. Many bureaucrats have been very close to Netaji and he liberally gave away tickets to sons and daughters of bureaucrats ahead of UP elections. MIT product Abhishek Mishra, son of 1980 batch IAS Shanker Mishra, is now a minister in Akhilesh Yadav’s cabinet. Even Juhie Singh, daughter of former UP chief secretary Akhand Pratap Singh, fought elections on a Samajwadi Party ticket, but she lost to BJP heavyweight Kalraj Mishra.

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