If the reports doing rounds in a section of media are to be believed, YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is likely to drop his favourite IAS officer Praveen Prakash from the chief minister’s office.
According to these reports, Jagan has instantly approved Praveen Prakash’s request to go to the Central services. In his place, he is expected to bring in another senior IAS officer S S Rawat, presently principal secretary in the state finance department.
Praveen Prakash, a 1994-batch IAS officer, has been virtually calling the shots in the CMO ever since he was brought back to AP by Jagan soon after he came to power last year.
He has been serving as the principal secretary in CMO and is dictating terms to all the bureaucrats, even bypassing the orders of chief secretary. In fact, he was responsible for the abrupt transfer of former chief secretary L V Subrahmanyam.
Apparently, Jagan has been receiving a lot of complaints from the YSR Congress party MLAs and MPs against Praveen Prakash that he had been rejecting their requisitions for various works in their respective constituencies. Several other IAS officers also reportedly complained to CM against Praveen Prakash.
So, when Praveen casually told the chief minister that his wife was still working in Delhi and that he would like to join her in the central services, Jagan readily agreed for his request.
He reportedly approved the file pertaining to his shifting to New Delhi and replacing him with Rawat.
There has been no official confirmation yet, but this is the talk going on in the official and media circles now.