Karnataka: Ratna Prabha cries harassment by male colleagues, says CS is conspirator
Bengaluru: "I have fought the highest investigating agency of the country the CBI. I have been given a clean chit from the highest judicial authority of India, the Supreme Court, and I have been cleared by the Central Vigilance Commission. Here are the documents,'' she told Deccan Chronicle as she laid out the documents for us to see.
In the bitter battle for the race to the Chief Secretary's post that will fall vacant after controversial current CS Arvind Jadhav demits office on September 30th, she pointed fingers at her male IAS officers who, she says, are "harassing her" by indulging in smear campaign.
Front runner for Chief Secretary's post K Ratna Prabha, for the first time opened up on the ongoing feud in the state bureaucracy. "Right from beginning (of the jockeying for the top post), there have been vested interests working in different quarters to tarnish me and stop me from becoming the Chief Secretary of the state. There is a lobby and this lobby should be dismantled, else the syndicate will go from strength to strength to achieve its ulterior motives,'' she said.
In December, when the post fell vacant after Kaushik Mukerjee retired, a "mischievous" letter landed in the chief secretary's office seeking action against Prabha in the Indu Tech Park case.
"After Arvind Jadhav took over as CS on January 1st, he had the letter with him. Ideally he should have brought it to the notice of Chief Minister buthe sat on it for five months deliberately. I gathered information on that and I countered him saying why he has not replied to the DoPT letter. He said he was a well wisher and he didn't act on it. I was shocked! He should have replied to the letter in my interest if that was case and do his duty. By not replying he kept my case hanging and gave room for tarnishing my image and scuttling my chances," Prabha told this paper.
In June, Prabha brought up the matter with the Chief Minister who directed the CS to act on the letter. Even then the CS is alleged to have sat on the letter as for the second time it was time for a new chief secretary to take charge.
"Only after he got extension did he reply to the CBI stating there were no grounds to further order investigations and that I have come clean. This was sent on July 23rd," she said.
After the CM signed the file clearing me on June 16, he again sat on the file for a month, she added. The woman IAS officer of 1981 batch says that it is not an even platform in the male dominated bureaucracy.
"I doubt some of these IAS officers will digest the fact that they have to take instructions from a woman. It is very petty that they are indulging in this kind of activity. I have an impeccable track record. I have been challenged and I have answered my detractors morally and legally. I have left a mark wherever I worked and Invest Karnataka is the recent example. Ultimately, it is left to the Chief Minister to pick the candidate for the top job. Why indulge in cheap tactics? What kind of message is being sent to the state bureaucracy or other woman officers in the cadre?'' she questioned.
