Graft in Yogi Adityanath’s ‘zero tolerance’ land

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had a penchant for making a point of his administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ for corruption.

He has repeated it enough to convince people that he means it. His ministers and officials too miss no opportunity to mention this. The image of an incorruptible administration has also been boosted by reports in the media — notwithstanding widespread suspicion to the contrary.

Recent developments have begun to dent this image, even among fans of Yogi’s bulldozing ways of enforcing law and order. The latest controversy centres on a leaked letter from the Union finance ministry to the Lok Ayukta requesting an inquiry into corruption in the state’s information department.

The ‘leaked’ letter was aired on the YouTube channel of a journalist once considered close to the Yogi Adityanath camp. A retired deputy director of the department endorsing the irregularities has lent it further credibility. The corruption allegations assume significance, as the information department is under the supervision of the chief minister’s office.

While the request for the Lok Ayukta inquiry was made in March 2025, there is no word yet on its progress, if any.

If the deputy director, who retired in August 2024, is to be taken at face value, the department’s annual budget has grown to Rs 3,600 crore during the last eight years, up from Rs 25 crore in 2000.

No journalist or media is willing to comment on the department and its working, meanwhile. The retired deputy director has alleged that commissions — for advertisements in newspapers and TV, as well as publicity events — had become the norm. Much of the work of the department, he said, had been outsourced with decisions made by a tight-knit coterie.

The other talking point is the allegations made by some state ministers against their own departments’ officers, regarding transfers and postings.

At least four ministers have spoken of hundreds of officials in their departments transferred between 15 May and 15 June 2025 — due to ‘extraneous considerations’.

The transfers, they claimed, involved bribes running into several hundred crores.

The ministers in charge of stamp and registration, medical and health, animal husbandry and basic education have openly talked about this. Significantly, the chief minister has cancelled 1,000 such transfers and ordered an inquiry.

Opposition leaders have seized the opportunity. “There is no government in the state,” said Samajwadi Party chief and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. It is a money-making racket, he said, adding that government departments had become a “marketplace” with rates fixed for everything, not just desired transfers.

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati too expressed concern and demanded an independent SIT to look into the “corruption disguised as corruption”. In a strongly worded statement, she advised the chief minister to take ‘stern and stringent’ action to protect the government’s integrity.

A retired chief secretary, said to be close to Akhilesh Yadav, described it as “a symptom of a larger malaise”. Transfer and posting of government employees at all levels is now a full-fledged industry in UP, he said.

Adding to the discomfort of the government is a recent two-part documentary by BBC Hindi, challenging the UP government’s claim that only 32 pilgrims died in the 29 January stampede during the Mahakumbh Mela.

The BBC journalist identified and visited the homes of next of kin of at least 82 pilgrims from seven states who died in the stampede. While some of them received cash compensation ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh, others did not get anything from the UP government.

If this was not bad enough, a departmental inquiry by a Prayagraj divisional commissioner found that 42 per cent of the roads built for the Mahakumbh in and around Prayagraj were structurally poor and below par. Even the support infrastructure developed with the massive budget for the event has begun to crumble barely five months later, the inquiry found.

There is unrest within the state BJP too. While some legislators express frustration in private conversations, others hint at a conspiracy by “powerful people” in New Delhi to discredit the Yogi.

Neatly sidestepping the question of growing corruption, they question the manner in which the BBC documentary got such precise information and hint at the involvement of intelligence agencies.

Meanwhile, as allegations mount, the state government has maintained a studied silence on the BBC documentary and the information department. But the transfer scandal and the infrastructure scam allegations have emerged from within the government’s own echelons, which Yogi may find hard to overlook — especially with panchayat and urban local body elections drawing closer and the assembly election scheduled for 2027.

MINI BANDOPADHYAY is an independent journalist based in New Delhi