In what comes across as nothing short of a direct refusal of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government’s order issuing a blanket ban on red beacon from official cars to end VIP culture, legislative members of two non-BJP governed states refused to do so.
Minister from Congress-governed Karnataka, and MLA of ruling RJD in Bihar, in two different statements, said that they were not bound by the cabinet decision of the central government.
They said that they would remove the red beacon, a symbol of power and VIP culture in India, only after their state cabinet or the Chief Minister asks them to do so.
"If the Chief Minister asks me to remove the red beacon light, I will obey his instruction and remove it," Food and Civil Supplies Minister Karnataka U T Khader told news agency PTI yesterday.
Khader said it was the state government that had given him the car with a red beacon and not the central government, and that he had no right to alter it.
Similar was the stand of RJD MLA Bhai Birendra in Bihar where his party has formed a government with Nitish Kumar’s JDU.
"Which cabinet decided this? Why Bihar will follow any decision by the Delhi Cabinet? If our Bihar state government will pass this order then only we will follow the rule. I won't remove the red beacon from my car," Birendra told news agency ANI. He is an MLA from Maner constituency in Bihar.
The Union Cabinet had last month decided to end the flashing of red beacons by all politicians, MPs, VIPs and VVIPs with effect from May 1 to end VIP culture.
"In our country people don't like the VIP culture. I recently came to know that how intense it is. So the government banned the use of red beacon atop the vehicle of ministers no matter how prominent leaders they are," the Prime Minister had said in his recent Mann ki Baat address to the nation.
He said getting rid of the red beacon was an administrative decision but efforts have to be made to remove the VIP culture from the mindset also.
And he couldn’t have been more correct. For, leaders across several states have found innovative ways to skirt this decision by the government. From Maharshtra to Karnataka to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, leaders and bureaucrats have been scrambnling for options to get around this measure.
