Still in race
There are speculations about a senior IAS officer posted on deputation to the Centre, that he is not going to return to Madhya Pradesh as its next Chief Secretary (CS), but this Sahib is not totally out of the race for the coveted position. The officer is waiting for the outcome of the Vidhan Sabha election. If the BJP forms the next government, he may return to the state as CS. If that happens, the officer will have only one and a half years, since he is on the verge of retirement, but once he takes over as CS, he will surely get an extension. There was a time when the Central Government was unwilling to send him back to the state, but the situation has changed. So, the Centre will not scruple to permit the officer to return to the state. Besides him, another officer deputed to the Centre is keeping an eye on all the happenings in the state, and has developed good relations with a leader who is in the circle of a CM-in-waiting. This officer, too, is waiting for the election outcome.
Lost enthusiasm
Two IAS officers, keen on going to the Centre on deputation, have lost their enthusiasm, after four female principal secretaries failed to get posting in Delhi. Both the officers think if their applications for deputation are approved and if they do not get posting there, they will be nowhere. Both crave for going to Delhi. Nobody in the corridors of power thought that the process for posting of these four female principal secretaries would be in limbo for such a long time. Now, the officers wishing to go to the Centre have begun to use their clout in the Government of India before sending their applications to the state government. It has happened for the second time that an officer was not posted even after three months of the state government’s approval. Once it happened to a principal secretary who, despite making a lot of efforts, got posting, and that, too, to an insignificant post.
Clout in both camps
A Principal Secretary (PS) has clout in the ruling party as well as in the opposition camp. A man recently visited the office of a Congress leader with some documents against the PS, hoping that the politician’s close associates would be happy with the documents, and launch a campaign against the officer. On getting the records, they only said they would mull over the issue. The person concerned met the politician’s associates several times, but they did not give him any response. On the other hand, the PS came to know about it, and when the bureaucrat mounted pressure on the man to settle the issue, the latter was taken aback. The PS got the issue settled, but the person concerned realised that the ruling party and the opposition sail on the same boat, as far as dealing with a bureaucrat goes.
Confusion prevails
There is a lot of confusion in a department after its minister has refused to sign any file because of the upcoming election. The minister and the head of the department have been at loggerheads with each other for a long time. A senior officer tried to resolve the dispute, but the chasm between the head of the department and the minister widened. The minister got very angry, since the work was not done according to his wishes. The minister entered into offstage dealings with many suppliers of the department. But its head refused to give any work to the contractors recommended by the minister who, in protest, also declined to do any work of the department. There are many files that require the minister’s signature, but he resolved not to sign any of them and, because of this dispute, the funds, the department was supposed to get, lapsed. A Union Minister mediated between the minister and the head of the department to end the tussle, but a solution eluded.
Clerical error
Three IPS officers are in a pickle because of the mistake of a clerk. The Centre has deployed officers from across the country to probe the violence in Manipur after an order of the Supreme Court which, however, asked the government to employ the DSP-rank officers for it. When the order was issued, the clerk, who typed the order, wrote ‘SP’ instead of ‘DSP’ and that entailed all the troubles. Because of this clerical error, three IPS officers from the state have been sent to Manipur for the inquiry. When the apex court issued the complete order, it came to light that it never asked for the services of ‘SPs’ to do the job. On the one hand, the CBI, under which these IPS officers are working, has refused to give their salary. On the other, since the state government has relieved them, they are not getting salaries from the state treasury. Now, they are in the soup for no fault of theirs. These officers are moving from pillar to post to get the issues resolved and cursing the clerk.
Tug of war
There are talks about an SP who has been shifted from a district after a wrangle between two Union ministers. What happened was that a few leaders of the BJP’s district unit complained about the SP to a Union Minister looking after the party’s election affairs in the state. The BJP leaders told the Union Minister that the SP was working according to a politician. The minister, after having a gander at the complaint, recommended transfer of the police officer. But another Union Minister was against the transfer, and used all his clouts to save the SP. The issue then reached the party’s central leadership, and the SP was removed after a lot of deliberations. The incident, however, created a rift between the two central ministers. Since the minister, who recommended the transfer is very powerful, his counterpart took the incident with a pinch of salt and kept mum. Otherwise also, there is nothing new in the wrangle between politicians and police officers in the district from where the SP was transferred.
