Weeding saffron out of govt is a tough job

The so-called detoxification programme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to weed out the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh (RSS) and saffron elements from the government seems to have run into trouble, six months after the Manmohan Singh-led government came to power at the Centre.

Other than the human resource development ministry, which is pursuing the policy of undoing decisions taken by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, other ministries seem to be caught in a legal bind.

A prime example of this bind is the allotment of nearly 270 plots of institutional land to educational organisations associated with the RSS in 2003.

The problem is that legally, apart from the fact that all the 270 allotments were made at a single meeting of the allotment committee, nothing much can be done to reverse the decision because procedurally, the NDA government appears to have violated no rules in allotting land to the RSS or its affiliates.

According to sources in the Union urban development ministry, the allotment procedure was set in motion when Jagmohan was the urban development minister although the actual allotment was made when Bandaru Dattatreya was at the helm of affairs.

"There were some 1,500 government residential quarters in the Rouse Avenue, which were demolished as they were in a bad shape and the land-use norm was changed from residential to institutional," said a senior official in the department.

"After that the land was allotted. All this was done within the ambit of the law, since the Congress-led Delhi government had launched two successive enquiries and could not find anything wrong in it either and had to give its sanction," added the official.

Similarly, the government's efforts to replace the Indian Council for Cultural Affairs chairman, Najma Heptullah, have hit a block because of the legal safeguards to her appointment.

The ICCR chairman is appointed at the pleasure of the President and in order to demonstrate his displeasure, the government will have to initiate impeachment proceedings against the chairman, something that Foreign Minister Natwar Singh is not inclined to do.

Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy seems to have overplayed his hand by removing Anupam Kher as the censor board chief just as his ministry denied a censor certificate to Prakash Jha's film on Jaiprakash Narayan.

"It seemed unfair to remove Kher who has fewer hang-ups than the minister accusing him of bias," said a senior official.

Therefore, what began as a grand policy exercise is now turning out to be a piecemeal endeavour, bureaucrats say.