His Master’s Choice

The chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes seems to be on a Congress assignment

NEW DELHI ~ Panna Lal Punia is a man on a mission. As chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Punia says he is fighting to eradicate untouchability with all his might. Only, a large part of his and the Commission’s might is largely directed at catalysing the process of making the Congress the principal challenger to Mayawati in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls of 2012.

Punia, also a Congress MP, has taken it upon himself to educate Dalits in the state about their rights, as well as the policies of the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre. Currently, in his capacity as chairman of the NCSC, he has got the Commission to organise awareness camps in every district of Uttar Pradesh where he meets Dalits and informs them about schemes launched by the Centre, and about safeguards provided for them by the Constitution. But more interestingly, through these awareness programmes, Punia also assesses the mood of the Dalit votebank in the state and reports the same to the Congress High Command about the prospects of the party in the coming elections. At the end of this exercise, in which Punia hopes to visit every district before the polling exercise, he will submit a report to his party.

Between December 2010 and February this year, the Commission conducted 18 awareness camps in UP—one each at all the divisional headquarters. The Commission then prepared a report on the outcome of the camps. It spoke of how the local Congress was losing an opportunity to convert these camps into a campaign in its favour. ‘The schedule for the meetings was drawn in advance and intimation sent to the AICC general secretary/secretary in-charge, UP Congress Committee president, all MPs, MLAs and important Congress leaders,’ Punia says in the report, lamenting the fact that Congress leaders and workers largely stayed away from the awareness camps.

The report talks of a strong anti-Mayawati sentiment in the state that the Congress must capitalise on. ‘A very strong anti-Mayawati sentiment was visible. Very large number of cases of Dalit atrocities came which were not registered with the police, and in most cases of atrocities, BSP functionaries and leaders were the main culprits,’ Punia observes in a two-page summary to the thick report that largely comprises of newspaper cuttings of the camps. Punia, surprisingly, has no qualms about using the Commission’s machinery to further the interests of the party he belongs to. “I submitted the report personally to madam (Sonia Gandhi) and Rahulji. He said continue aggressively with your efforts and let me know if you need my help, I am there,” says Punia. To add to the BSP government’s woes, Punia enjoys state-guest status when he visits the state because as the chairman of the NCSC, he is accorded the rank of a Cabinet minister. In fact, the state government decided to amend the UP State Guest Rules, 1961, under which Punia enjoys state-guest status. Mayawati is not fond of Punia and she makes no bones about it.

When Punia won the Barabanki Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket in 2009, newspapers widely reported how the BSP chief spent more than half an hour, in a meeting called to assess the Lok Sabha results, talking about Punia. “I wonder if you know that Punia is not a Chamar. He is a Dhanuk from Haryana,” Mayawati is said to have told her party’s leaders. A former bureaucrat, Punia served as Mayawati’s principal secretary in her three earlier stints as Chief Minister in 1995, 1997 and 2002. Differences cropped up between the two at the time of the Taj Corridor case. The Taj Corridor was a project to upgrade tourist facilities near the Taj Mahal, in which Mayawati’s government was charged with corruption. Rahul Gandhi and his advisors on UP pulled off a coup of sorts by getting Punia on their side. The officer had worked with Kanshi Ram and Mayawati closely. Indeed, rather too closely for Mayawati’s comfort. He moved from being Maya’s trusted lieutenant to becoming a crucial player in Rahul Gandhi’s 2012 assembly election plans in UP. He also led one of the 10 yatras through Dalit-dominated areas that Rahul flagged off on 14 April 2010— as part of the Congress’ campaign for the Assembly elections. After he fell out with Mayawati, Punia joined the Congress in 2005, once he retired from the IAS. In 2007, he contested an Assembly election from Fatehpur but lost, only to make a comeback in 2009 as the Barabanki MP.

Punia too makes no effort to hide his contempt for Mayawati, claiming that she has been gunning for him ever since they fell out. “She put 18 of her ministers on the job to make sure that I do not win the election, but I did,” he says. “The ministers were from all castes and religions. She wanted to influence the voters of Barabanki on the basis of caste and religion, yet I won by 168,000 votes and the BSP candidate was relegated to third place,” Punia adds, only stopping short of physically thumping his chest.

The former aide and one-time confidant of the UP Chief Minister thinks he is largely responsible for building Mayawati’s image as an able administrator. “People say her first three stints as CM were good because governance was my responsibility,” he proclaims. As for Mayawati’s charge that he is not a Jatav (Chamar), Punia retorts: “I am a certified Chamar. When I joined the IAS, I submitted my records to the UPSC in 1970. Those are there with the commission even today for anyone to see. When I was with her, she used to introduce me to everybody as a Jatav.” he says. As far as Punia is concerned, the battle for UP is about him versus her. “Mayawati is scared of me, that’s why she doesn’t miss an opportunity to warn workers,” he says.

Punia accuses the Mayawati government of misusing Central funds meant for Dalit welfare, and the Commission has already issued notices for it. “When I was in the government, I used to look after the Dalit agenda. Dalit villages were never starved of funds,” he says. In his assessment, voters in the state are moving towards the Congress again. “The party has to work very systematically and project that it can be a viable alternative that is fit to win in all constituencies,” he says, adding: “If the Congress projects a Dalit leader, that will quicken the process of weaning Dalits away [from the BSP].” Punia doesn’t need to spell out exactly which Dalit leader he has in mind as he doles out this advice

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Jatin Gandhi