The ongoing probe in opposition to a former chief secretary and one other senior bureaucrat of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands on allegations of sexual abuse has highlighted the absence of a political construction within the Union Territory, with powers fully vested in officers.
Top politicians of the islands rued that with no Assembly, and with a Pradesh Council that had elected representatives abolished since 1994, even their advisory function stays curtailed, leading to inordinate powers with the forms, particularly the Chief Secretary.
As reported first in The Indian Express, a Special Investigation Team of the A&N Police is probing allegations of gangrape and sexual assault in opposition to former Chief Secretary Jitendra Narain, and Labour Commissioner R L Rishi on a criticism by a 21-year-old lady. As a part of the investigation, police are taking a look at claims that over 20 girls have been allegedly taken to Narain’s residence in Port Blair throughout his year-long tenure, and a few are stated to have gotten jobs in lieu of sexual favours. Narain was transferred round three months in the past, and has now been suspended.
The current MP from the A&N Islands (it has just one parliamentary seat), Kuldeep Rai Sharma of the Congress, highlights the logistical issues in governance of the archipelago, which includes over 500 islands, solely 36 of that are inhabited. “Here it is the bureaucrats led by the Chief Secretary who are the policymakers, and it is high time the Pradesh Council was brought back with full executive powers. It is only the local politicians who know the ground realities while the bureaucrats treat it as just another posting,” the MP stated.
The CPI(M) Secretary, A&N, D Ayyappan served because the Senior Private Secretary to Jitendra Narain for nearly a 12 months. In the start of 2022, he stop his authorities job to take up full-time get together work. Calling expenses in opposition to Narian symptomatic of the big clout bureaucrats wield, he says they run the present “in the absence of a democratic set-up”. “There is no forum where the people’s representatives can go and the officers continue to take all policy and financial decisions. Even the doors of the Raj Bhavan are shut to all.”
About Narain, the CPI(M) chief says: “He had an extremely autocratic style of functioning and would routinely harass his staff.”
Ayappan provides that when the Pradesh Council was abolished throughout Congress rule, with an modification within the A&N Municipal Regulation, solely the CPI(M) had criticised the transfer and even the BJP was silent. The CPI(M) has since been demanding the institution of a Puducherry-model Assembly and Government in Port Blair.
The BJP, which didn’t touch upon the sexual assault expenses in opposition to Narain until he was directed by the Calcutta High Court to look earlier than the SIT, has since issued a press release condemning the incident. Its senior leaders additionally say the Pradesh Council needs to be revived with government powers.
BJP A&N president Ajoy Bairagi says individuals are struggling within the absence of a political construction. “There are over 200 government staffers, mostly senior, who took voluntary retirement during the tenure of Chief Secretary Jitendra Narain. Here, the final powers for all decision-making, from A to Z, rest with the Chief Secretary, and that is why such a serious situation has arisen.”
The BJP’s Bishnu Pada Ray, who has been three-time A&N MP (Vishal Jolly misplaced the 2019 elections to the Congress’s Kuldeep Rai Sharma) says that round two months earlier than the switch of Narain as Chief Secretary, he and Bairagi had met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in regards to the “loot and plunder” within the distant territory.
According to him, the Home Minister took motion, and that one of many measures was Narain’s switch.
