Bengaluru: In an apparent effort to tighten his grip on bureaucrats as well as his cabinet colleagues, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has reportedly sought complete details of meetings and files attended to by his colleagues personally, besides, culling out information from CCTV cameras on whether ministers visited their offices or not.
With this initiative, the Congress party seems to have launched an evaluation of ministers in a discreet manner. The perception that the Siddaramaiah government had come to a screeching halt with ministers not even available to their own party leaders and legislators in Vidhana Soudha has perhaps prompted Mr Siddarmaiah to launch this operation secretly, said sources. The CM’s office seems to have sought the details of the ministers’ entry and exit from their respective offices over the past 3 months.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a highly placed source in the state government, disclosed that the CM’s office has made oral requests to various department heads to list the number of meetings chaired by ministers, besides listing their dates of inspections and the tour plan and aim of the tour in a particular district. “In case a minister undertakes a tour in a particular district, then the nature of meetings he held in that district should be submitted to the CM’s office. Apart from this, the CM had also sought footage from CCTV cameras which are installed outside the offices of ministers.
This was sought to evaluate whether ministers followed the instructions of Mr Siddaramaiah or not. The CM had instructed ministers to be present at Vidhana Soudha for at least three days in a week.
This was done to help party workers and people who come to Vidhan Soudha to find solutions to their problems,” the source explained.
According to the source, when Mr Siddaramaiah met district leaders including MLAs before the Lok Sabha polls, most of them chose to criticize the ministers. “When ministers were asked why they do not turn up at Vidhana Soudha, they used to claim that they visited their offices, but even then a section of ministers were not available. Now, Mr Siddaramaiah wants to see on his own whether ministers visited their offices. The CM’s office has sought to know how long ministers were present in their offices,” the source said.
