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Hours after the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee refused to release Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay for central deputation, the latter retired from service and was immediately re-appointed by the State government as “Chief Advisor to CM”.
HK Dwivedi will now be the Chief Secretary.
Banerjee, on Monday evening, announced that Bandopadhyay has retired from service, as per rules, and has turned down the offer for extension of service. He is however re-appointed as her “Chief Advisor” for three years.
Centre-State row
A Centre – State tussle broke-out Friday evening onwards after Bandopadhyay was asked to “report to Delhi, Monday 10 am”. No reason was cited. His reporting in Delhi was subject to release by the West Bengal government.
Bandopadhyay, a 1987-batch IAS officer, was due to retire today (May 31), but was granted three-month extension. Banerjee pointed out that the chief secretary heads over a dozen committees related to Covid management and his retirement could pose a problem. Subsequently after Cyclone Yaas hit, Bandopadhyay was entrusted with rescue-rehabilitation work in the affected areas.
Bandopadhyay would have been the second Chief Secretary, after Samar Ghosh, under Mamata Banerjee’s Chief Ministership to have given an extension. He, however, now joins the list of IAS and IPS officers who have been re-appointed by the State in a different capacity post retirement – former Chief Secretary, Rajiva Sinha was re-appointed as Chairman of the State’s Industrial Development Corporation for a period of three years and Surajit Kar Purakayasta who retired as the DGP and was subsequently re-appointed State Security Adviser.
Mamata writes to PM
On Monday morning, two days after the DoPT’s recall order, Banerjee shot off a letter addressed to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and called the decision “unilateral” and “unconstitutional” and requested him to recall the transfer order.
While the exact reason for Bandopadhyay’s recall is not known, sources say it was triggered after the Chief Minister skipping a review meeting Chaired by the PM. Even the CM Banerjee in her letter to Modi had asked if the recall order was in any way related to the “Kalaikunda incident”.
On May 28, the Chief Minister was reportedly unhappy with the presence of Leader of Opposition and BJP MLA, Suvendu Adhikari and Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar at the meeting which she claims should have been a PM-CM meeting only. However, Banerjee arrived at the meeting venue later, met the PM one-on-one in a 15 minute meeting where she handed over a preliminary report on the damages due to cyclone Yaas. The Chief Minister had initially said she was not fully aware of the PM’s schedule and denied the presence of Suvenudu Adhikari – her aide turned bête noire – at the meeting as a cause of displeasure.
In the letter on Monday she claimed that the “structure” of the meeting was revised to “include a local MLA” (referring to Adhikari who is the MLA from Nandigram) who had “no locus to be present in the PM-CM meeting”.
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