To fly with BJP, bureaucrat bails out of babudom

GANDHINAGAR: Rajnikant M Patel, a high-profile 1977 batch IAS officer and a former communist, is learnt to have put in his papers to fight Gujarat assembly elections on a BJP ticket from Asarwa, a scheduled caste constituency in Ahmedabad.
Sources said Patel, better known as “comrade Rajnikant” among his ex-associates in CPM’s student wing, Students’ Federation of India (SFI), has requested for voluntary retirementfrom October 1.Hewas due to retire in December.
Known to be inspired by late Subodh Mehta, Gujarat’s CPM leader, Patel lives in Asarwa and is currently additional chief secretary, panchayats and tribal affairs. His organizational skills were revealed when he managed hundreds of Gharib Kalyan Melas across Gujarat for chief minister Narendra Modi. This brought him close to Modi.
In thefirst phase,between December 2009 andAugust2010,Patelorganized 343 melas where doles worth Rs 4,700 crore were distributed to 25 lakh people.
The melas brought rich dividends for Modi, who handsomely won local district panchayat and municipality elections in October 2010. Ever since, the melas have become a regular feature. The last round of these melas, held for 225 talukas across the state, has just ended, where housing dole worth Rs 1,000 crore to three lakh people was distributed to below the poverty line (BPL) families. Modi addressed each of these melas via LED screens using satellite communication network of the state’s Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Application and Geo-informatics.
Sources said Patel has forwarded his resignation to the general administration department (GAD) through the chief minister’s office. Earlier, he was considered close to many in the voluntary sector, but had begun distancing himself from them lately, going so far as to stop government grants several NGOs working in tribal areas.
Lately, Patel had begun revealing his saffron leanings.Between December 2009 and February 2011, the Gujarat government distributed doles worth Rs 7,910 crore to 57.42 lakh people in 642 Gharib Kalyan Melas. Of the recipients, just 1.56 per cent of people (90,036), belonged to the minority community. “Muslims do not apply for benefits,hencethey do not get the doles,” he told TOI.