India Today – August 19, 2019

GLASSHOUSE

PMO CERTIFICATION NORMS

T

hePrimeMinister’sOffice,inModi2.0,istighteningitsgripontheministries.
ThebuzzisthatthePMOisrejectingministers’recommendationsforoffice
staff,beitforpersonalsecretariesorofficersonspecialduty(OSDs).Even
recommendationsforrenewaloftenurearebeingspiked.Pendingrecommendations
includethosefromtheVicePresidentofIndia,VenkaiahNaidu,andseniorcabinet
ministersNitinGadkariandDharmendraPradhan.Giventhehighrejectionrate,the
PMOhasnowaskedthedepartmentofpersonnelandtraining(DoPT)andministers
toinformallydiscussthenamesbeforesendingthemup.Thealternativeonofferis
tochoosefromaPMO-approvedlistofofficers.

BsinHerBonnet

W

estBengalchiefminister

MamataBanerjee’s

suggestiontorenamethestate

‘Bangla’inBengali,‘Bengal’in

Englishand‘Bangal’inHindi

wasdismissedbytheCentre.

SheisnowrootingforBangla.

Itis,unfortunately,alsoBengali

slangforcountryliquor.PM

Modiwasnon-committalwhen

theTMCraisedthenameissue

inarecentmeeting.TheBJP

wantstoretain‘West’toremind

peopleofthePartition,plus

‘Bangla’couldbeconfusedwith

theneighbouringBangladesh.

WiththeBJPlookingtounseat

theTMCin2021,whatthestate

unitsayswillcarryweight.

H

yderabad-basedgodmanTridandiChinna

Jeeyarseemstohavemadeahobbyofcollecting

chiefministers.InNovember2016,Telangana

CMK.ChandrashekarRaohadinvitedhimto

inauguratehisnine-acreoffice-cum-residence,

PragatiBhavan.Morerecently,AndhraPradeshCM

Y.S.JaganmohanReddypaidhisrespectstohim,

whileB.S.Yediyurappa,determinedtocompletea

fulltermasKarnatakaCM—havingfailedtodoso

thrice—madehiswaytoJeeyar’sashramonAugust 1

tospendanightthere.

GURUTOALLCMs

TRANSFER

TALES

—Sandeep Unnithan with Anilesh S. Mahajan, Amarnath K. Menon, Sahil Joshi and Romita Datta

Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE

N

CP and Congress leaders

who crossed over to the BJP

are having a rough time. Possibly

used to more easygoing chief

ministers who wouldn’t turn down

an official in matters of transfers

and postings, a senior Congress

leader, recently inducted as

minister in the Devendra

Fadnavis cabinet, was taken

by surprise when told that, once

approved by the CM, the transfer

file could not be seen by anyone

else. Turns out, Fadnavis, like

Prime Minister Narendra Modi,

likes to keep a tight grip on

governance.

SUBIR HALDER

P. ANIL KUMAR