Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay’s tenure was extended for three months only four days ago.
On the same day a row broke out over a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the centre has issued an order to recall West Bengal’s top bureaucrat from the state. Before Friday’s order to recall him to the centre came, Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay’s tenure was extended for three months only four days ago.
The order by centre has asked Bengal to send Mr Bandyopadhyay to the Department of Personnel and Training’s office in Delhi by May 31 morning.
This development is seen as a more of political response to what Mamata Banerjee did on Friday to Prime Minister Modi on his visit to the state. Ms Banerjee skipped a meeting with PM Modi to assess the impact of Cyclone Yaas, choosing instead a quick 15-minute interaction with him at an airbase where his flight landed. Though the Bengal CM had to attend a cyclone damage review with PM Modi, she instead left after handing him a report. The centre alleged Ms Banerjee kept PM Modi and governor Jagdeep Dhankhar waiting for half-an-hour.
Trinamool also slammed centre for its move to recall the top WB official. Trinamool MP Sukhendu Sekhar Ray said: “Has this ever happened since Independence? Forced central deputation of a Chief Secretary of a state. How much lower will Modi-Shah’s BJP stoop? All because people of Bengal humiliated the duo and chose Mamata Banerjee with an overwhelming mandate?”
For IPS officers, the Home Ministry is the cadre controlling authority, however, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), which gave the order to recall the Bengal Chief Secretary, comes under the Prime Minister’s Office or PMO.
The centre invoked Section 6(1) of the IAS (Cadre) Rules while ordering the recall of the Bengal Chief Secretary. The provision reads: “A cadre officer may, with the concurrence of the state governments concerned and the central government, be deputed for service under the central government or another state government or under a company, association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not, which is wholly or substantially owned or controlled by the central government or by another state government.”
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