UP: Junior minister Dinesh Khatik sends 'resignation' to Union home minister Amit Shah

LUCKNOW: Over hundred days after it came to power for a record second term, the Yogi Aditynath government faced a minor crisis on Wednesday when a resignation letter purportedly written by junior minister Dinesh Khatik to Union home minister Amit Shah went viral. Khatik has expressed his desire to resign in the letter citing unfair treatment by officers at his Jal Shakti department as he was a Dalit. He has also mentioned that he has not been allotted any work by his cabinet minister, Swatantra Deo Singh, who is also the state BJP chief.
Khatik has sent his letter to Shah, though ministers normally send their resignation to the governor, the CM, or the state party chief. None of these offices had received the resignation till the filing of this report. Sources confirmed that he had also sought an appointment with the CM in the evening. When some reporters approached him in Meerut earlier in the day, he came up with a one-liner: "Koi vishay nahin hai (There is no issue)." Thereafter, he remained elusive.
Khatik was involved in a dispute last month with the police of his constituency, Hastinapur, over the filing of an FIR. He was then pacified by deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya.
This is not the first time that a minister has raised questions over the functioning of the bureaucracy. Before Khatik, deputy CM and health minister Brajesh Pathak had written a letter to additional chief secretary, health, Amit Mohan Prasad, about several anomalies in transfers in his department. Pathak's letter had also gone viral.
Similarly, all was not well between secondary education minister Gulabo Devi and additional chief secretary, Aradhna Shukla.
The CM had called the ministers and officials from both the secondary education and health departments about a week back on two separate days to resolve the issues. Yogi's intervention led to the setting up of a three-member committee to look into the complaints of transfers in the health department.
A similar panel was formed to look into the complaints against six senior officials of the PWD department. The CM ordered suspension of all six of them, including an OSD who had been associated with PWD minister Jitin Prasada for a long time. The action led to speculations that Prasada, too, was unhappy over interference from the top level and had sought time from Shah on Wednesday. However, he denied any meeting with Shah and said there was no question of his 'unhappiness'.
Khatik's claim that he was being ill-treated by officers for being a Dalit gave ammunition to the opposition leaders to target the BJP government. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav tweeted: "Resigning from a biased government, where being a minister is no honour but being a Dalit is an abuse, is justified." BSP chief Mayawati also tweeted that ill-treatment meted out to a Dalit minister is condemnable and unfortunate.
The MoS's claim that he had not been allotted any work in the Jal Shakti department has put Swatantra Deo Singh in the dock. After Khatik's letter went viral, Singh said that he talks to his junior minister everyday and that he is not unhappy. "If at all there are some issues, it would be sorted out after a meeting with him," he said.