AAP shuffled babus like pack of cards: 100 officers transferred in govt's 49 days

NEW DELHI: Nearly 100 officials were either transferred or shuffled in the Delhi government during the 49 days that the Aam Aadmi Party was in office.
The transfer spree began within hours of Arvind Kejriwal becoming CM as more than half a dozen top bureaucrats of the Sheila Dikshit regime were moved. Since then the churn only gained momentum as part of what the government said was a clean-up operation.

One of the last orders issued by the AAP government before it quit involved the transfer of around 15 SDMs about two days before the CM resigned.
Besides moving senior IAS officers and other officials from central and state services, the government paid special attention to departments involved in public dealing like revenue district offices, anti-corruption branch, sub-registrar offices and VAT department. The government transferred all 17 subregistrars . All these transfers were seen to be a warning to those on the ground.

Top sources said across departments nearly 100-odd officials were transferred in an apparent bid to weed out those who may have been posted due to connections and officials with “doubtful” credentials. The exercise , it is claimed, was intended to make administration more responsive and honest.

For his crack team, Rajendra Kumar was chosen by Kejriwal as secretary. MM Kutty, a senior IAS who was former CM Sheila Dikshit’s principal secretary, was moved to finance, to social welfare and women and child development and finally was again given additional charge of finance.

A 1991 IAS, Debashree Mukherjee posted as CEO Delhi Jal Board was repatriated to DTC and the portfolio of power was taken away from principal secretary RK Verma known to be close to Sheila Dikshit. Chief secretary DM Spolia, too, was moved out in the second week and replaced with former DDA VC S K Srivastava The first day of the AAP government on December 28 began with a major bureaucratic reshuffle that was seen to mark the end of Congress thinking on policy matters .

While the intended benefits of the bureaucratic transfers may remain frozen as AAP has quit office, it did not always get the officers it wanted. With regard to the ACB, Kejriwal's first choice for ACB was joint commissioner Praveer Ranjan, but he was transferred to Pondi cherry. Later V Renganathan joined as additional commis sioner to head ACB but went on leave. Ex-ACB chief and retired IPS N Dilip Kumar came in as ad visor on anti-corruption mat ters.

AAP was proactive in filing FIRs in two CWG scam related cases and then went national fil ing a case alleging fraud in the gas pricing to benefit Reliance chief Mukesh Ambani. In the present scenario, the future of the probes is dependent on zeal of investigators.