Despite a national uproar over the suspension of IAS officer Durga Nagpal Shakti, the decision to remove her from her office in Noida is "final and correct," said Mulayam Singh Yadav, chief of the ruling Samajwadi Party and father of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Ms Nagpal is being investigated for allegedly endangering communal harmony by ordering the demolition of a wall for a mosque being built in Noida, just across the border from Delhi. But the 28-year-old's supporters say she is being persecuted for taking on the powerful and politically-connected sand mining mafia in Uttar Pradesh. (
Read: After chargesheet, land-grabbing charges suggest vendetta)
Samajwadi leaders trotted out a litany of sharp statements today, in apparent retaliation for a letter in support of Ms Nagpal written by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to the Prime Minister.
"If the centre wants to intervene, let it remove all IAS officers from the state. We will run the state with our own officers," said party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, who is also the chief minister's uncle.
"Any officer who makes a mistake will be punished," said the chief minister today, while praising his government for freeing bureaucrats from what he described as the tyranny of his predecessor, Mayawati. "In her time, IAS officers used to remove their shoes before meeting her," he said, "today, they move freely." (
Watch)
The state government, which sent Ms Nagpal a 10-page charge-sheet on Sunday evening, has assigned the enquiry against her to the Commissioner of Meerut. After three letters from the centre, Mr Yadav's government finally shared a report on the case, in which it says that though Ms Nagpal was not present when the wall of the under-construction mosque was removed, local police and intelligence officials believe that her actions could have provoked a riot.
For the centre, the controversy is a formidable one. The Samajwadi Party's 22 Lok Sabha MPs are crucial for ensuring that the minority government is able to clear important legislation in the new session of parliament that began today.