The high priest of tribal politics is banking on non-tribals, that too from outside Jharkhand, to run his show.
Chief minister Shibu Soren has packed his team with three Delhi-based persons, leaving even his close aides from Jharkhand high and dry.
Meet Ajit Kumar. He has been appointed political adviser to the chief minister. The post was specially created for him as no such post existed earlier in Jharkhand. A journalist by profession, Ajit said he was executive producer of a news channel before joining the Soren team. He was also said to be close to Binod Sinha, the businessman-friend of former chief minister Madhu Koda. Ajit originally belongs to East Champaran district of Bihar but settled in Delhi.
Ajit maintained that he could not be termed as an "outsider". "I belong to undivided Bihar," he added. He said that he helped Baba — as he fondly calls Soren — to hold consultation with the RJD and Congress during the political brainstorming for one month which finally saw Soren in the hot seat.
Soren, during his nine-day stint as chief minister, had appointed two political advisers — Pradeep Dixit and Ranjit Sinha. While Sinha had his roots in Ranchi (he was president of Ranchi University students' union), Dixit belonged to Mumbai.
M.M. Pal, Soren's private secretary, belongs to Purulia district in Bengal. It was through his in-laws that Pal got in touch with Guruji and became one of his confidants. His in-laws belong to Karaun village near Dumka. Pal, according to official records, was a mechanical engineer in public sector CMPDI and resides in Vidyapati Nagar.
BJP MLA Sarayu Roy, a few days back, had alleged that CMPDI had terminated Pal's services after the CBI found him guilty of getting jobs on a fake certificate. Pal has not contradicted the charges so far. He could not be contacted for his comments.
Neeraj Kumar, appointed the officer-on-special-duty, has raised eyebrows in the bureaucratic circle too. Hailing from Delhi, Neeraj occupied the chamber of the secretary in the chief minister's secretariat.
Commercial taxes secretary Alka Tiwary, an IAS officer, held the post of secretary at the chief minister's office during the Koda regime.
Over-enthusiastic Neeraj has recently summoned a few secretary-level officials to review the development work in the state.
In fact, he also held talks with the striking secretariat employees yesterday on behalf of the government.
His action, however, was against the set norms. According to a senior official, a non-government person cannot be privy to the government files in order to maintain confidentiality. Neeraj said that he did not hold any review meeting with senior officials.
"I was just trying to know the state by interacting with the officials. And it was necessary to turn Guruji's vision into a reality. I do not think it was wrong," he said.
Under the rules, the principal secretary is responsible to provide legal opinion on various files to be cleared by the chief minister. The post is meant for the 1983-batch IAS officer B.K. Tripathy. Tripathy hails from Bokaro where Soren too has his house.
Soren, who returned to Delhi after addressing a conference in Chhattisgarh, could not be contacted.
However, Binod Pandey, one of Soren's confidants and JMM youth wing's state president, said that Guruji cared for each section of society.
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