Click to play videoNew Delhi: Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar, a confidante of Chief Minister Mayawati, has been stripped of his powers days after an accused in the multi-state kidney racket made accusations against him.
Shekhar will no longer have the status of a Cabinet Minister—a privilege he enjoyed as vice-chairman of the UP Planning Commission. He has also been relieved of the charge of administrative head of the state secretariat.
Dr Upendra Aggarwal, one of the main four accused in the kidney racket, has allegedly told police that a house Shashank owns in Noida was used for illegal surgeries. The opposition Samajwadi Party had demanded that Shekhar be removed from his post to enable an impartial probe of the racket.
Mayawati though on Saturday said Shekhar himself asked to be relieved of his duties because of personal reasons. “Yesterday on February 29 our state government’s Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar wrote a letter to me that he wants to be relieved from the post of a Cabinet minister and the privileges and facilities of a Cabinet Secretary. I have accepted his letter,” she said.
Political analysts say by removing Shekhar the Mayawati government wants to keep itself away from any taint in the kidney transplant racket, which was uncovered after the police raided a house in Gurgaon on January 24, 2007.
Aggarwal was arrested that night and kingpins of the racket, Dr Amit Kumar and his brother Dr Jeevan, were captured later. Media reports say Shekhar’s name cropped up when the Central Bureau of Investigation interrogated Aggarwal.
Chief Secretary P K Misra would the new administrative head of the state secretariat, Mayawati told reporters in Lucknow.
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