Frustrated with the alleged indifference of State officials, a Cabinet Minister in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday took hold of a spade himself to repair a road in his native village in Varanasi.
U.P. Backward Class Welfare Minister Om Prakash Rajbhar claimed that a 250-metre stretch of mud road near his house in Fatehpur Khonda village was not being repaired by officials despite several applications to the Public Works Department as well the District Magistrate. If a Cabinet Minister had to face such a situation, what would be the state of common citizens, he wondered.
Levelling a road
Spotted in a white vest and white pyjamas, the yellow scarf of his party tied around his head, Mr. Rajbhar on Saturday began digging to level the potholed road leading to his house. Some of his family members and party workers also joined him. A video of him working with the spade in the afternoon heat was widely circulated on social media.
“I wanted to show a mirror to the officials. So that they can learn how work is to be done from me and get rid of their incompetence," Mr. Rajbhar told The Hindu from Varanasi after he finished the work. He is the president of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in U.P.
Several political personalities, including State ministers and MLAs of the ruling party as well as the Opposition, had been invited to the feast on Sunday.
A major embarassment came on Friday when Rajya Sabha MP Amar Singh visited the village and pointed out the pathetic state of the road to him, Mr. Rajbhar said."I am a farmer's son. We are used to working in the fields. When I got tired of trusting [the officials], I decided to do this work on my own," Mr. Rajbhar said.
The road, said Mr. Rajbhar, had been built over two decades ago and was in a poor condition with potholes as deep or wide as 6-9 inches. He said that not only had he been writing to the officials for several months, he had even prepared an estimate through a State engineer and sent it to Lucknow.
Varanasi District Magistrate Yogeshwar Ram Mishra was contacted several times but was not available for comment.
This is not the first time the OBC leader he has blamed officials in U.P. for hampering development work.
Last year, Mr. Rajbhar sat on a dharna in the Ghazipur district of Purvanchal against his own government, alleging that the District Magistrate was not paying heed to his requests for the construction of a minor road.
