Amita Singh – who caught the public eye in 2011 for winning Rs 50 lakh on the popular television quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati – said she wasn’t given any reinforcements during the demolition of the illegal slaughterhouse.(Facebook/ Kaun Banega Crorepati Official)
The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh allegedly shunted a bureaucrat for closing an illegal slaughterhouse at a time the party’s administration in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh is enforcing a sweeping crackdown on illegal abattoirs.
The transfer – the 23rd in Amita Singh’s 13 years as a state administrative services officer – came on March 31 after she allegedly shut down an illegal slaughterhouse from the main market of Narsinghgarh tehsil in Rajgarh district and forced the owners to shift to the outskirts.
The 45-year-old – who caught the public eye in 2011 for winning Rs 50 lakh on the popular television quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati – said she wasn’t given any reinforcements during the demolition and the matter was highly politicised, leading to her transfer to Beora Tehsil.
“When people are praising newly formed government of Yogi Adityanath for closing illegal slaughter houses, I was punished for shifting it peacefully by making a balance between two religious communities,” said Singh.
But Narsinghgarh sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Rishi Garg said Singh did a “commendable job in shifting the slaughter house”.
Singh – who is a tehsildar – says she attracts hostility for being honest and that the animosity has increased since she won money at KBC. “From 2003 to 2011, I got transferred nine times but after appearing in KBC in 2011, I was transferred for 14 times in six years. I checked and came to know that this is a record,” said Singh. On an average, she has spent seven months at one place.
“People welcomed me as ‘KBC wali madam’. Now, people have started sending jokes to me to apply for national record of getting transfer the maximum number of times,” she said.
A disheartened Singh said all her superiors termed the transfers as a reward for working hard. “But nobody cares how it feels to be shifted once every six or seventh month.”
Rajgarh collector Tarun Pithode called Singh a very good administrator. “She has been transferred to Beora as lot of development projects are coming to Beora and it’s a junction. She has also done a commendable job in revenue collection and she can improve the revenue collection of Beora.”
When asked about the need for transferring her in such a short span of time, Pithode said, “It’s an administrative decision and it is not a punishment posting.”
But many people are now supporting her. An advocate Shahid Shaifi said, “She was a very good administrator and she resolved a very old issue of the slaughter house by providing good shops to the meat sellers.”
Satendra Rathod, a local resident said the administration was troubling an honest woman administrator. “We have registered our protest against it Rathod, who gave a memorandum to the district magistrate.
However Singh said she never complained to anybody. “But now, things are getting tough for me because it is not an easy task for a woman to shift house every seventh month.”