Barely a week into his new job, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar has started a major shuffle in the top echelons of the state bureaucracy. Noted for his organisational skills in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Khattar has appointed a number of new principal secretaries and additional principal secretaries.
Though it is routine for new governments to push out bureaucrats considered loyal to the previous dispensation and usher in a new crop of officials, the scale of the process undertaken in Haryana is considered unusual. Scarcely before has a chief minister been so energetic and made so many changes in less than a week of taking charge.
The Bharatiya Janata Party claimed the bureaucratic reorganisation is not political vendetta, but an attempt to improve the administrative course in Haryana. “The new chief minister wants to waste no time in settling down," said BJP Haryana spokesperson Jagmohan Anand. "People in Haryana have suffered enough under Congress’s corrupt rule and we have to start fixing things as quickly as we can."
Hooda loyalists
But others believed the cause of the shuffle lay elsewhere. A source in the Khattar government told Scroll.in that the top two bureaucrats who were among the targets ‒ Sudeep Singh Dhillon (principal secretary to the chief minister) and KK Khandelwal (additional principal secretary-I to the chief minister) ‒ were considered loyal to Khattar’s predecessor Bhupinder Hooda. “The two officials are from Hooda’s hometown of Rohtak and have been loyal to him throughout their tenure,” said a BJP official.
Both Dhillon and Khandelwal, the official claimed, were seen as instrumental in helping the Hooda government get out of trouble when it was under the scanner for the Robert Vadra-DLF land deal. In 2008, the Hooda government is alleged to have allotted Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra a 3.5-acre plot of land in Gurgaon to develop a commercial colony for Rs 7.5 crore. Two months later, he sold it to the property giant DLF for Rs 58 crores.
In addition to these two bureaucrats, Trilok Chand Gupta, a senior official in the chief minister's office, was alleged to have stood by Hooda as the land deal flamed into a controversy after bureaucrat Ashok Khemka raised questions about it. Gupta was reported to have written Hooda’s statements and addressed press conferences against Khemka.
Gupta, a 1987 batch IAS officer, too is likely to be transferred by the Khattar government.
New appointments
In place of Dhillon the new government appointed Sanjeev Kaushal, the principal secretary in the architecture department, as principal secretary to the chief minister. Khandelwal was replaced by Sumit Mishra, a 1990 batch IAS officer who was the managing director of the state tourism department and the Haryana Dairy Development Cooperative Federation.
Jawahar Yadav, BJP spokesperson for Haryana, was assigned as officer on special duty to chief minister. Rakesh Gupta, who previously held a number of positions including the office of secretary in the health department, was sent to fill the vacant post of additional principal secretary-II to the chief minister.
While Dhillon and Khandelwal were among the first to go, more transfers are expected to follow. The additional chief secretary in the development and panchayat department, Ram Niwas, and the principal secretary in the transport and aviation department, Roop Ram Jowel, are likely to be replaced next week.
Though it is routine for new governments to push out bureaucrats considered loyal to the previous dispensation and usher in a new crop of officials, the scale of the process undertaken in Haryana is considered unusual. Scarcely before has a chief minister been so energetic and made so many changes in less than a week of taking charge.
The Bharatiya Janata Party claimed the bureaucratic reorganisation is not political vendetta, but an attempt to improve the administrative course in Haryana. “The new chief minister wants to waste no time in settling down," said BJP Haryana spokesperson Jagmohan Anand. "People in Haryana have suffered enough under Congress’s corrupt rule and we have to start fixing things as quickly as we can."
Hooda loyalists
But others believed the cause of the shuffle lay elsewhere. A source in the Khattar government told Scroll.in that the top two bureaucrats who were among the targets ‒ Sudeep Singh Dhillon (principal secretary to the chief minister) and KK Khandelwal (additional principal secretary-I to the chief minister) ‒ were considered loyal to Khattar’s predecessor Bhupinder Hooda. “The two officials are from Hooda’s hometown of Rohtak and have been loyal to him throughout their tenure,” said a BJP official.
Both Dhillon and Khandelwal, the official claimed, were seen as instrumental in helping the Hooda government get out of trouble when it was under the scanner for the Robert Vadra-DLF land deal. In 2008, the Hooda government is alleged to have allotted Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra a 3.5-acre plot of land in Gurgaon to develop a commercial colony for Rs 7.5 crore. Two months later, he sold it to the property giant DLF for Rs 58 crores.
In addition to these two bureaucrats, Trilok Chand Gupta, a senior official in the chief minister's office, was alleged to have stood by Hooda as the land deal flamed into a controversy after bureaucrat Ashok Khemka raised questions about it. Gupta was reported to have written Hooda’s statements and addressed press conferences against Khemka.
Gupta, a 1987 batch IAS officer, too is likely to be transferred by the Khattar government.
New appointments
In place of Dhillon the new government appointed Sanjeev Kaushal, the principal secretary in the architecture department, as principal secretary to the chief minister. Khandelwal was replaced by Sumit Mishra, a 1990 batch IAS officer who was the managing director of the state tourism department and the Haryana Dairy Development Cooperative Federation.
Jawahar Yadav, BJP spokesperson for Haryana, was assigned as officer on special duty to chief minister. Rakesh Gupta, who previously held a number of positions including the office of secretary in the health department, was sent to fill the vacant post of additional principal secretary-II to the chief minister.
While Dhillon and Khandelwal were among the first to go, more transfers are expected to follow. The additional chief secretary in the development and panchayat department, Ram Niwas, and the principal secretary in the transport and aviation department, Roop Ram Jowel, are likely to be replaced next week.
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