UP chief minister Mayawati’s letter box, rather bag, seems to be overflowing.
The number of letters that the chief minister receives every day has been steadily going up and the general post office in Lucknow has now set up a separate cell that deals exclusively with letters addressed to the chief minister.
According to sources in the postal department, the chief minister receives around 1,500 letters every day. “Most of them are addressed simply as ‘Mukhya Mantri, Lucknow’. Many letters bear her residential address which is 5, Kalidas Marg while the rest go to her office address. Some letters are also directed to her 13 Mall Avenue residence. In the new cell that we have set up, all letters, most of then postcards, addressed to the chief minister will be sorted out and delivered at the different addresses,” says a postal official.
According to postal sources, majority of the letters and postcards carry complaints about the high-handedness of police and civil officials. “From the postcards, we can make out that the maximum letters are related to complaints while a few come with requests for financial help too,” the official says.
The new cell has decided to open channels of communication with the chief minister’s security officials and information about any letter that seems suspicious is immediately communicated to the security personnel.
The cell has deployed five postmen who deliver these letters at the three designated addresses every day while five postal personnel are given the task of sorting the mail. Interestingly, the Lucknow GPO does a business of around Rs 1 crore per month and of this, around Rs 20 lakhs is from letters addressed to the chief minister that come through registered post and speed post. “In previous regimes, we would get around 1,000 letters per week but now we get more letters in a single day,” the official said.
The reason for this is that the common man has no other option to approach the chief minister, except through letters. The weekly Janata Darbar that used to be held on a weekly basis at the chief minister’s residence and would attract complainants from all parts of the state, has been suspended ever since Ms Mayawati took over.
The chief minister and her officials remain completely out of bounds for the common man who, then, has no option but to send his complaints/requests through the post office.