It has been nearly two months since YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy took as the new chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and he is making all out efforts to establish his mark on the administration.
But what Jagan has failed to understand was the functioning of bureaucracy, since he had no experience of administration in the past.
He apparently thought he could get the things done easily by the IAS officers by keeping them in good humour.
However, IAS officers have a different mindset. They go by the rule book and if the chief minister tries to enforce his ideas, they do not simply agree for the same if the ideas are against the routine system.
That is what is happening in the Jagan’s government, say sources in the Secretariat.
At the first IAS officers’ conference, Jagan tried to give an impression that he is a friendly chief minister and asked the officials to guide him and give him right advices.
It gave a lot of relief for the bureaucrats, who had to face a tough time in Chandrababu Naidu regime who had never allowed them to have proper sleep.
But things changed when Jagan held the cabinet meeting ahead of the assembly session recently.
While he wanted to push all the bills pertaining to implementation of Nava Ratnas, the IAS officers tried to give him a piece of mind, saying the financial resources do not permit to implement all the promises.
This has angered Jagan who is learnt to have walked out of the cabinet meeting in a huff. Even chief secretary L V Subrahmanyam had to face a similar experience with Jagan in some issues and the latter reportedly shouted at him.
Apparently realising that Jagan is a tough nut to crack and a stubborn leader, the chief secretary told all the other IAS officers to listen to what Jagan says and tries to implement them as far as possible.
“Jagan is not a flexible leader but is stubborn. So, let us blindly follow what he says. If any scheme fails, the blame will go on to the chief minister,” the chief secretary reportedly told the other IAS officers.