A day after the Supreme Court asked him to follow Raj Dharma or quit, Chief Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a day-long seminar on ‘Good Governance’. However, when he delivered the opening speech, he made sure mediapersons weren’t there to hear him.Hardly had the seminar started when mediapersons were asked to leave the hall. For the next two hours, they waited for the Chief Minister to come out. Soon, Chief Secretary P.K. Laheri came out and informed them that none of the government officials would comment on the Supreme Court observations. ‘‘The matter is in court and neither the Chief Minister nor any other official will comment on it,’’ he said.The mediapersons had to make do with extracts of Modi’s speech provided by the State Information Department in the evening. In his speech, Modi did not mention the apex court’s observations. Nor did he mention what is good governance. He merely said, ‘‘Only when the people start describing the government as pro-people government has the administration succeeded.’’ The day-long seminar was aimed at making changes in the working of the bureaucracy so that it meets international standards.State government officials, including ministers, secretaries, commissioners and chairpersons of various boards and committees, attended the seminar.In his speech, Modi said in good governance, employees should aim for higher goals. ‘‘Think and dream big. It is very easy to think and achieve small success but that would not bring about a major change in the scenario. But if five lakh employees of the state government set high targets, none of the residents of the 18,000 villages in the state will ever have a complaint against the government,’’ he said.
