The genesis of the problem goes back to the case of the former West Bengal chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay who got caught between the feud between the Modi government and the state government. His crime: he, along with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, failed to attend a review meeting on Cylone Yaas with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the presence of as BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari, who had defeated Mamata in her in Nandigram constituency. Obviously the Modi government could not do anything to Mamata, but the DoPT under Modi’s charge asked Bandyopadhyay to report in Delhi the day after his tenure as Bengal chief secretary ended, which the senior bureaucrat and close confidant of Mamata Banerjee refused to do. This was despite the fact that the Centre had agreed earlier to the state government’s request for a three months’ extension to the chief secretary’s tenure in view of the crucial role he played in the management of the cyclone relief and rescue operation as well as the Covid pandemic.
But the Bengal tigress that Mamata was, she refused to relieve Bandyopadhyay, but appointed him as special advisor to the state government for a period of three years. And Modi’s department of personnel could nothing to stop the appointment other than frown. Modi is not known to brook defiance of any kind and the revised cadre rules are a sequel to the snub. It is a different matter that the response is highly unbecoming of a prime minister.
It was the 19th century American theologian James Freeman Clarke who described the difference between a politician and a statesman: a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman think about the next generation. Modi was not even thinking about an election, he seems to have taken it as a personal affront, behaving like a crass politician.
Apparently, no part of the message has been lost in transmission and Mamata has promptly shot off a letter, expressing her disapproval and accusing the Modi government of destroying the federal structure of the country. She said the amendment would “create a fear psychosis among officers and impact their performance”, while warning Modi about bigger movements if the Centre did not go back on its decision.
With Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan joining issue with the Centre, it is no longer a Centre versus Bengal issue and is developing into a national confrontation between the Modi government and state governments ruled by opposition parties. Both the chief ministers complained that the new rules will enable the Centre to post IAS officers on Central deputations bypassing state government suggestions and inputs and the proposed changes “strike at the very root of the nation’s federal polity and state autonomy”.
Similarly, Rajasthan's Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh's Bhupesh Baghel and Jharkhand's Hemant Soren have also written to Modi asking him to scrap the new rules, which upsets the balance between the Centre and the states in a sphere that is so crucial to governance. (IPA Service)
MODI’S IAS CADRE RULE MOVE UNBECOMING OF A PRIME MINISTER
MIXING PERSONAL EGO CLASH WITH STATESCRAFT IS DANGEROUS
K Raveendran - 2022-01-25 10:36
It takes no rocket science to understand the real reason behind the Modi government’s move to amend cadre rules of IAS and other civil service officers. The Centre has proposed the changes, citing ‘public interest’, but it is obvious that the unilateral move is meant to promote purely ‘private’ interest of certain individuals and the result of an ego clash between Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose department of personnel and training (DoPT) considers itself to be the sole ‘owner’ of all civil service officials. Accordingly, the proposed rules, any official requisitioned by the Centre will automatically stand relieved from the responsibilities of the state government concerned, giving the Centre the ultimate say in the matter.