Tag: Mohan Markam

IT, ED Conduct Raids on Unprecedented Scale on Bhupesh Baghel’s Entire ‘Coterie’

Several influential people, including the mayor of Raipur, have been subjected to the three-day raids.

Raipur: At Chhattisgarh’s capital city, the use of central agencies by the BJP government at the centre has perhaps reached the zenith of its controversy as chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s entire coterie including some of the topmost ranking officers in the state have been raided.

All at once, Income Tax teams from Delhi, Jaipur and Hyderabad descended on Raipur on Thursday morning when the entire administration was busy with the ongoing Budget session and proceeded to raid the houses and premises of  former chief secretary and present RERA chairman Vivek Dhand, IAS officer Anil Tuteja, liquor baron Amolak Bhatia, Raipur mayor Ejaz Dhebar and Officer on Special Duty (excise) A.P. Tripathi.

Dhand is now the first chief secretary to be subjected to a raid in the history of the original Madhya Pradesh cadre.

Also read: Chhattisgarh CM Refuses to Sign NRC Documents, Calls to Oppose ‘Black Angrez’

The IT teams extended their raids to Friday to include the single most powerful bureaucrat in the state — deputy secretary to Baghel, Soumya Chaurasia. Chief minister’s OSD Markam and his closest associate Vijay Bhatia have also been included in the raids.

Only the chief minister’s largely out-of-work advisors have not been raided.

The chief minister has called this the height of revenge politics. In a tweet, he said that he has submitted a memorandum to the Governor seeking protection and intervention.

Health minister T.S. Singhdeo has been quoted as saying:

“I believe it’s a legal issue and the departments have their own work to do.”

The Pradesh Congress Committee president Mohan Markam had the following observation to make on the raids.

“All those who have been raided had all been sitting on malaidar (prized) posts during the previous Raman Singh regime.”

Markam did not comment on the fact that these are the very same people who have been running the state for Baghel for the past year.

Ejaz Dhebar, who is widely known as Baghel’s political muscleman, became the mayor of Raipur against all odds with the chief minister’s backing. He, along with the whole of his family is believed (by the IT and ED departments) to be sitting on huge amounts of money. Six residences of the Dhebar family are still being raided.

Tuteja, who had been suspended following the NAN scam’s surfacing was reinstated by Baghel and made special secretary of Industries. He and his neighbour Dr A. Farishta have been raided together on the suspicion that they have been making collections on behalf of the powers that be.

Tuteja’s wife Meenakshi, who runs a chain of half a dozen beauty parlours has been included in the search along with all her premises.

A.P. Tripathi who was brought in from his parent department BSNL is believed to be a close relative of a senior officer in the Secretariat and has handled the excise tracking system. He has been included in the raids for his alleged money links to Netherland.

Amolak Bhatia had been crucial to the new excise policy and another businessman, Gurcharan Singh Hora, have been netted for their alleged role in running the liquor and real estate deals.

It did not stop here, three chartered accountants who have been handling the accounts of all those raided yesterday and today have also been included in the search. The raids have been carried out in Raipur, Durg, Bhilai and Bilaspur simultaneously.

The involvement of ED means that most included in the raids remain netted for a while now. All statements made and documents seized — especially from the CAs — can become powerful tools for harassment for years.

The raids are likely to go on for another day.

What Explains the Appointment of Mohan Markam as Congress’s Chief in Chhattisgarh?

The party appears to worried about its tribal vote bank slipping away – as it has observed in Odisha and Jharkhand.

On May 23, Rahul Gandhi offered to resign as Congress president. Subsequently, all notifications issued by K.C. Venugopal, general secretary (administration), were in the name of All India Congress Committee (AICC).

However, on June 28, more than a month after Rahul first made the offer and a day after Vivek Tankha caused a domino effect of resignations, Mohan Markam was appointed the president of Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC), replacing the sitting chief minister Bhupesh Baghel who had held the dual charge.

This time, the letter was issued in the name of AICC president.

Can a Congress president who has sent in his resignation appoint a state unit president? How is the president’s resignation accepted and by whom? Does the resignation of Congress president entail that the organisation’s general secretary becomes the temporary head till fresh elections take place – and if that is the case, then can he issue appointment letters in the name of AICC or party president?

These questions can only be answered by the Congress Working Committee. If someone were to approach the Election Commission or challenge Markam’s appointment in court, it could then result in a closer examination of the Congress constitution.

Markam’s appointment, however, also raises questions of a deep political nature. While most observers interpreted Markam’s letter as a sign that Rahul might continue as the party president despite his insistence on resignation, less than a week later, he made his resignation letter public by tweeting its entire content. In it, he lamented that he had had to fight the 2019 general elections on his own steam and that not many within the Congress had come forward to support him, especially the senior leaders. He was also despondent that no one had taken responsibility and chosen to resign like him.

Also read: How Vivek Tankha, a Little-Known Congressman, Set Off a Domino Effect of Resignations

Neither had Baghel sent in his resignation and nor was Rahul attending office, so what was the urgency in appointing Markam? And why was Markam chosen for the post? Why is he important? Equally significantly, Chhattisgarh is the only Congress-ruled state where has Rahul approved a cabinet expansion through the swearing in of Amarjeet Bhagat on June 29 itself.

There are no easy answers, but it appears Congress is now worried about its tribal vote bank slipping away – as it has observed in Odisha and Jharkhand. It thus wants tribal PCC presidents in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

Also, Bastar has completely slipped out of Congress’s hands, at least that’s what the Lok Sabha results showed. Congress had won 11 out of 12 assembly seats in Bastar in December 2018, but it managed to win by a narrow margin only one out of the two Lok Sabha seats six months later.

Markam, 51, was a shiksha karmi in Bastar and later became an insurance agent when Chhattisgarh came into existence in 2000. Around 6-7 years later, he met Ajit Jogi, who, impressed with his ability to take up public causes, drafted him into Congress. He was later twice elected as an MLA from Kondagaon. At present, he is a sitting MLA. This still does not explain his elevation to PCC president.

Amarjeet Bhaga, a four-time MLA from Surguja, and Manoj Mandavi, a three-time MLA from Bastar, had both been ignored for a cabinet berth by Baghel.

Also read: Rahul’s Exit is a Historic Opportunity for the Congress, and its Members

While Delhi was witnessing the resignation drama, a sub-plot seems to have been playing out in Chhattisgarh. Baghel’s rival claimant for the chief ministerial post, T.S. Singh Deo, did not want Amarjeet Bhagat – who represents Sitapur in Surguja as PCC president – after initially having blocked his entry into the cabinet in December. Baghel had cleverly kept a spot vacant for Bhagat. So before push came to shove, Baghel took in Bhagat and opted for low-profile Markam over Mandavi.

So, was it Baghel who was able to convince Rahul to make this one last appointment? It must have been, because Baghel was in-charge of the Lok Sabha campaign and its costs in Amethi and UP while Rahul campaigned all over the country and in Wayanad. He did not want to risk someone else taking over as Congress president and wanted to make changes according to his will. Baghel was helped in this endeavours by P.L. Punia.

What they failed to do, however, was to get a list of chairmen for various boards and corporations in time. This will soon lead to acrimony between various factions.

Markam has declared that his first priority is to win the two seats in Bastar that are to go to polls, and then prepare for the forthcoming municipal and panchayat elections at the end of the year. He has also declared that he will be leading agitations against the Central government. What all issues will be covered still isn’t certain. Meanwhile, he has an able challenger in fellow Bastariya Vikram Usendi, who heads the BJP state unit.