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Once reputed to enjoy a good rapport, senior Bhartiya Janata Party leader and Uttar Pradesh Housing and Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon is so cut up with Chief Minister Mayawati that the two are now not even on talking terms.
The recent spate of transfers of civil and police officers in Lucknow district, which Tandon considers as his pocket borough, has not gone down well with the BJP leader who is known as Mayawati's rakhi brother.
Leave alone being consulted, Tandon was not even aware of the proposed transfers till they had been made public.
Not in a position to rock the boat at this early juncture, especially without the help of his senior colleagues former chief minister Rajnath Singh and former state unit president Kalraj Mishra, both of whom were against the BJP-BSP alliance, Tandon has been putting up a brave face in public.
"She is the chief minister and has every right to transfer, suspend or do anything to her officers. Why should I crib about it?" he asked when newspersons broached the subject.
So far, his only response has been to prod the chief minister to go in for the much-delayed cabinet expansion and express his displeasure over the inordinate delay in the formation of a coordination committee between the coalition partners.
In fact, Tandon is the only supporter Mayawati has had in the BJP with Rajnath Singh and Kalraj Mishra having washed their hands off her after being betrayed by her once too often.
It was for this reason that he enjoyed the special privilege of having his own hand-picked officers not only in the various departments under him but also in Lucknow district, as in-charge of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Lok Sabha constituency.
However, in an obvious bid to humiliate Tandon, Mayawati ordered drastic steps against some officers regarded as close to him, including Lucknow district Superintendent of Police B B Bakshi who was suspended for the unabated crime in the state capital.
Among other Tandon appointees censored for the same reason was Lucknow District Magistrate Navneet Sehgal.
The fact that he was kept in the dark about this drastic administrative exercise came as a shock to Tandon.
In turn, he shot off a letter urging Mayawati to complete initiate the long overdue cabinet expansion by July 28.
Publicly he maintains that there are no misgivings between the two claiming that he had met Mayawati even after the recent spate of transfers, though they never discussed this issue.
However, sources close to Tandon said that Mayawati's sudden brazen attitude has not gone well with Tandon.
At the same time, sources close to Mayawati were of the view that she had been hearing a lot of Tandon lording over a parallel power centre, which was likely to undermine her position.
The recent developments were meant to make it clear that she, and she alone, called the shots in UP, they said.
The infighting within the BJP is also working to Mayawati's advantage.
Kalraj Mishra, now entrusted by the high command to oversee the party's affairs in UP, in an obvious dig at Tandon, has been saying that 'transfers are the prerogative of the chief minister' - a statement often attributed to Tandon in the past.
Unfortunately, this time the chief minister's axe fell on his blue-eyed boys.
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