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  Opinion   Oped  29 Sep 2019  Dilli Ka Babu: Mysterious reshuffle

Dilli Ka Babu: Mysterious reshuffle

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Published : Sep 29, 2019, 7:21 am IST
Updated : Sep 29, 2019, 7:21 am IST

It was said that Ms Banerjee would request the Centre to send Mr Chaudhari to Kolkata to replace the outgoing chief secretary Malay Kumar De.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (Photo: Twitter/ ANI)
 West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (Photo: Twitter/ ANI)

The sudden replacement of coal secretary Sumanta Chaudhari with A.K. Jain has set tongues wagging in the power corridors. The unexplained mystery is that the appointment order of Mr Jain as Mr Chaudhari’s successor is silent on Mr Chaudhari’s future. He has neither been repatriated to his home West Bengal cadre nor appointed to another ministry or department at the Centre. The order does not even mention whether Mr Chaudhari has been placed under waiting for further posting.

There is also much speculation about the timing of the appointment since the order came when West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was in the capital for meetings with the Prime Minister and the home minister. It was said that Ms Banerjee would request the Centre to send Mr Chaudhari to Kolkata to replace the outgoing chief secretary Malay Kumar De. But babus in West Bengal do not give credence to this view, saying that neither Mr Chaudhari nor the state chief minister had shown any interest in pursuing this aim. Mr Chaudhari apparently has 16 months left before his retirement in January 2021. On the other hand, in recent times, the coal ministry has seen a quick turnover of secretaries. While Mr Chaudhari served as coal secretary for about 10 months, his predecessor Inderjit Singh spent barely five months in the position.

Voice of dissent
Whistleblower Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi recently donated `25,000 to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund. He got this sum as compensation from the Centre in compliance with the Uttarakhand high court order settling a dispute over adverse entries made in his appraisal report.

Mr Chaturvedi has reportedly written to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) stating that following the harassment he was meted out by various authorities during his career, a fund should be created to help honest officials who have been victims of vindictive action. In his letter, he quoted Sardar Patel’s remarks in the Constituent Assembly where he said, “You will not have a united India if you don’t have a good All India Service which has the independence to speak out its mind”.

Mr Chaturvedi, who also won the 2012 Ramon Magsaysay award, is currently posted in Haldwani of Uttarakhand as a conservator of forests (Research). He had also earlier donated the money he had received from the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Sources say there is no response from the PMO to Mr Chaturvedi’s suggestion beyond appreciating his gesture of donating money to the PM’s relief fund.

Mamata ‘loyalists’ face the heat
Controversial former Kolkata police chief Rajeev Kumar is not the only senior officer from Trinamool-ruled West Bengal who is under investigation by Central agencies. While Mr Kumar is being probed for his alleged role in the infamous Sarada chit fund scam, two others — retired IPS officer S.K. Purkayastha and senior IAS officer Atri Bhattacharya — are also on the CBI’s list.

Beyond the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate is probing Gautam Sanyal, principal secretary to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, in a case involving disinvestment of a state government company.

However, there is one thing common to these four officials — they are widely perceived as being part of the CM’s inner circle. As “loyalists”, they are said to have wielded sweeping powers and authority. While the Centre maintains that the agencies’ interest in these babus is purely along routine investigation of alleged financial scandals and misuse of power, the state government is convinced that it is the CM’s strident opposition to the Modi sarkar that has resulted in these high-profile probes that are aimed to embarrass the state government.

Tags: mamata banerjee, sumanta chaudhari