When Election Commission of India had appointed L V Subrahmanyam as the chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh replacing Anil Chandra Punetha exactly a week before the assembly elections in the state in April, Telugu Desam Party president and then chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu was fretting and fuming.
He made very unsavoury comments L V Subrahmanyam describing the latter as a covert of YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and a co-accused in Jagan’s case.
He also fumed at LVS for not coming to the meetings convened by him in the post-poll scenario on the pretext of election code.
Naidu also incurred the wrath of several retired IAS officers who wrote a strongly-worded letter to him for making derogatory comments against Subrahmanyam. They described LVS as an outstanding officer and the high court had quashed all the cases against him.
Now, the same TDP leaders, including Naidu, are making it a big issue when the Jagan government shifted LVS from the chief secretary’s post to AP Human Resources Development Institute on administrative grounds.
Naidu is now questioning the authority of the chief minister in transferring the chief secretary, though he had done the same thing twice in the past.
At the same time, pro-TDP media have also been making a hue and cry over the transfer of LVS as if it was a big crime and grave mistake.
They are now spreading the talk that the Central government has taken a serious view of the “unceremonious” transfer of LVS for questioning the CMO authority.
According to these reports, the Central intelligence had reported to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Delhi bosses that the IAS officers in Andhra were unhappy over the way Jagan behaved with LVS. They are now predicting that LVS would seek a transfer to central services.
These pro-TDP media went to the extent of predicting that the Centre would appoint LVS as Central Vigilance Commissioner.
Perhaps, they are hoping that LVS would order vigilance investigations into the goings-on in the Jagan government!