Meerut (UP), Jul 21 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh Minister of State for Jal Shakti Dinesh Khatik on Thursday said there is no justification for his continuation in the post as some bureaucrats disconnect his phone calls and do not answer his letters.
A day after his purported letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah offering resignation surfaced online, sources close to Khatik said he will meet Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow late on Thursday. BJP’s state president Swatantra Dev Singh, who is also the Jal Shakti Minister, and departmental officers are expected to be present during the meeting.
Khatik had an informal interaction with the media here during which he praised the chief minister and said though Adityanath has adopted the policy of zero tolerance on corruption, officials in the state are corrupt.
“Some officers are defaming the government by acting arbitrarily,” he alleged. The minister also levelled charges of corruption against the officers in transfers and in the Namami Gange scheme.
“If the departmental officers do not respect a Minister of State, do not answer his letters or disconnect the phone, there is no justification in me continuing in the post at the cost of my self-respect,” he said.
However, when reporters asked him about his “resignation”, the minister did not give a categorical answer.
Khatik has long been involved in controversies over various issues.
On June 12, he had a heated argument with an inspector over the lodging of an FIR when he had reached Ganganagar police station regarding a case of robbery and assault on a worker by policemen.
The next day Khatik had returned his escort expressing displeasure and made serious allegations of corruption in police stations.
In 2021, he was accused of harassment in the suicide case of Ganganagar-based advocate Omkar Singh. An FIR was registered against him after lawyers staged a sit-in, but after he became a minister, the police cleared his name before filing the chargesheet in court.
Several audio clips, allegedly involving Khatik, have gone viral in the past. In one such audio, an inspector was heard being threatened with transfer while in another, an electricity department official was heard being threatened. PTI COR SAB CJ CJ
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Source: The Print
