A flurry of top level appointments in intelligence and security organisations at the end of the year will ensure that Modi sarkar will enter 2015 with the Prime Minister’s chosen people in place.
The naming of the quiet but capable Dineshwar Sharma as director, Intelligence Bureau, was the first of these heavyweight appointments.
The race to become the chief of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) ended with a close finish between Rajinder Khanna and his colleague Arvind Saxena.
Mr Khanna made it to the top. A 1978-batch RAW allied service officer, he won on seniority (he would have retired next week). His batchmate
Mr Saxena was not disappointed either. He was shifted to head Aviation Research Centre, a part of RAW but with a new degree of autonomy thrown in.
For once, or certainly in a long time, the government chose a RAW chief from within the service who is neither an Indian Police Service nor an Indian Administrative Service officer, but a state cadre honcho, with a long track record.
Heading the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at this time is no cakewalk. The paramilitary force is the mainstay in the government’s ongoing battle with Maoists.
So Prakash Mishra, the 1977-batch IPS officer from Orissa cadre, has a lot on his plate. Expectations from Modi sarkar are high and these are the men the Prime Minister has chosen to help meet them on the policing side. Point to note Rajnath Singh was not quite the power point in all these decisions.
CM’s dilemma
By next week, hopefully, Haryana would have a new chief secretary, perhaps from the 1982 batch. The current incumbent, P.K. Gupta, will superannuate on December 31, essentially being chief secretary for exactly one month.
It seems the dilemma for chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar is how to resist the pressure from the state’s influential builder lobby.
Sources say that Mr Khattar is seen as an outsider rather than a mainstream politician. If his becoming chief minister of Haryana came as a surprise to many, now business lobbies are trying the “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh route” to maintain their influence in the government. It is up to
Mr Khattar to resist their efforts. Babu observers say that since Mr Gupta was a 1980-batch IAS officer, it indicates that his eligible peers like Ashok Lavasa, Madhusudan Prasad and Sanjay Kothari are out of the reckoning.
The field, therefore, is open to three 1982-batch officers D.S. Dhesi, K.K. Jalan and Dr Dalip Singh. But you cannot rule out the emergence of a dark horse!
