NETA VS BABU TOURNAMENT

Top officials, MLAs, ministers spar in the open, even the Speaker has a go. The spree of public showdowns in Yogi’s UP points to deeper strains within the polity

- By Avaneesh Mishra

IN KANPUR, A TOP OFFICIAL IS THROWN OUT of a meeting hall by another, then caught on tape hurling abuses. In Banda, a ruling party MLA allegedly slaps a babu who dared to seize trucks linked to illegal mining. In Lucknow, a minister from BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal), Ashish Patel, accuses senior officials of conspiring to damage his political career—as also that of his wife, Union minister Anupriya Patel—and dares the state's Special Task Force to “shoot him in the chest”.

What exactly is happening in Uttar Pradesh, with this flurry of public clashes between its netas and bureaucrats, spilling over into viral videos, FIRs and noisy social media battles? An unlikely monsoon shower of contretemps for the BJP, that too in a showpiece state, it points to deeper strains that are all but bursting through the subsoil.

PUBLIC SQUABBLE