The ongoing internal squabbles within the bureaucracy of YSR Congress party government in Andhra Pradesh headed by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy led to the abrupt transfer of chief secretary L V Subrahmanyam on Monday.
Subrahmanyam was shunted out of his post by the same IAS officer Praveen Prakash, Principal Secretary (Political) in the chief minister’s office (CMO), against whom he had issued a show cause notice three days ago.
Subrahmanyam was transferred as director general of AP Human Resources Development Institute at Bapatla in Guntur district, an insignificant post for his stature.
He was asked to hand over the charge of chief secretary to another senior IAS officer Neerabh Kumar Prasad, chief commissioner of land administration.
A 1983-batch IAS officer, Subrahmanyam is the senior most IAS officer in the state. He was ignored by the previous TDP government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu in the appointment as chief secretary. Naidu preferred Anil Kumar Punetha as the CS.
However, Subrahmanyam was appointed as chief secretary by the Election Commission of India a week before the polling in the general assembly elections in April. And Jagan continued him as the chief secretary because of his seniority.
The trouble started when Jagan brought Praveen Prakash from Delhi as the Principal Secretary (political) in the CMO and he started wielding powers over the other bureaucrats.
Last week, Praveen Prakash issued a controversial GO, modifying the business rules, on the pretext that senior IAS officers are not following instructions from the chief minister or CMO in issuing government orders (GOs) on time.
Praveen Prakash threatened to serve show cause notices on top IAS officers, if they failed to issue orders within stipulated periods for implementation of the orders of the chief minister and CMO.
His orders apparently led to rumblings in the bureaucracy. On Saturday, Subrahmanyam issued a show cause notice to Praveen Prakash for bypassing him and including certain items in the agenda for the recent cabinet meeting.
Subrahmanyam charged Praveen Prakash with introducing items without following the laid down procedure.
The agenda for any cabinet meeting is finalised only by the chief secretary and principal secretary (political) is not authorised to make any changes.
And that led to Subrahmanyam’s transfer!