Ballia Nagar, Uttar Pradesh – In a dramatic midnight showdown, Uttar Pradesh Transport Minister and Ballia Nagar MLA Daya Shankar Singh publicly chewed out a Public Works Department (PWD) executive engineer for opening a newly built bridge over the Kathar Nala on NH-31 without his knowledge. The incident, caught on video and widely shared on X, has sparked chatter about protocol, politics, and power plays in Ballia.
Singh, a fiery BJP leader, was inspecting the bridge around midnight when he learned it had been opened to the public without formal clearance or his involvement. “Don’t lose your mind! I’m the MLA and minister here, and you didn’t even inform me,” Singh fumed at the engineer, as reported by Moneycontrol and Aaj Tak. He accused the engineer of acting under someone else’s orders, hinting at possible influence from the Bahujan Samaj Party’s Rasra MLA, Umashankar Singh, though he didn’t name him directly. “Are you running for election? Is BSP giving you a ticket?” Singh snapped, clearly frustrated.
The bridge, a key infrastructure project in Ballia, was meant to ease traffic but had been delayed due to pending tests and approvals. Singh had pushed for its opening, only to find the engineer had gone ahead without looping him in. “How can an officer ignore the minister, MLA, and municipal chairman? Someone’s backing him,” Singh told reporters later, suggesting higher-up interference. The outburst has fueled local gossip, with some on X calling it a justified reaction to bureaucratic overreach, while others see it as political grandstanding.
This isn’t Singh’s first brush with controversy. A seasoned politician with a Master’s in Medieval History from Lucknow University, he’s been a BJP stalwart since his student days with the ABVP. Elected from Ballia Nagar in 2022 after defeating the Samajwadi Party’s Narad Rai by 23,239 votes, Singh’s known for his blunt style. The bridge incident, though, highlights tensions between elected officials and bureaucrats in UP, especially as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath pushes for swift infrastructure upgrades. With Ballia already reeling from Ganga floods, the last thing locals needed was a public spat over a bridge meant to help them.
