In yet another move to irritate YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, state election commissioner Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar on Friday suddenly transferred Praveen Prakash, senior IAS officer and principal secretary in chief minister’s office.
It is an open secret Praveen Prakash is the most powerful bureaucrat in the CMO and a virtual right hand of Jagan Mohan Reddy. He is said to be much powerful than chief secretary.
In his letter to chief secretary Adityanath Das, the SEC expressed dissatisfaction over the implementation of his orders in censuring of two senior IAS officers in the past and defiance of several IAS officers including district collectors at the behest of the CMO.
Nimmagadda said it was Praveen Prakash, as the head of General Administration (Political) Department, who has to implement the SEC orders on the transfers, but the latter deliberately ignored the orders.
He alleged that Praveen Prakash was primarily responsible for scuttling the video conference convened on January 23 meant to review the poll preparedness as well as to impart instructions to the Collectors.
He said the CMO official had instructed the collectors, SPs and other officials not to participate in the SEC meetings and not to cooperate with the poll process as well.
He said the past record also showed that Praveen Prakash had defied the Election Commission of India, too, on the two previous occasions when he was the district collector of Visakhapatnam and Ranga Reddy.
“Since he is the fulcrum of administration, directly dealing with collectors and SPs and privy to influence their action, the SEC has felt that his continuance is prejudicial to free and fair elections,” he said and ordered that Praveen Prakash be transferred.
“He is barred during the course of elections to have interaction with District Collectors and Superintendents of Police and any other officers who either directly or indirectly deal with matters relating to elections," he said.