Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das next in Subramanian Swamy's line of fire

NEW DELHI: A day after hitting out against Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramnian, senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Subramnian Swamy on Thursday trained his guns against Shaktikanta Das, secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs on the social media.

Replying to a series of posts on Twitter, the BJP leader appeared alleging that a “property deal case” was pending against Shaktikanta Das, a 1980 batch IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre officer, in his cadre state.

?”@cominvestor? @devforpeace: I think there a property deal case pending against him for assisting PC swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations,” Swamy has said in one his tweets responding to opinions flagged off by those two handles.

One of the handles had tweeted tagging Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Subramnian Swamy to suggest that government should bar Economic Affairs secretary from the consideration of RBI top job.

“?@arunjaitley? @Swamy39 blacklist Urjit Patel, ShaktiKantaDas from RBI Governorship. No much headway #NSEL victims. BJP<>Congress,” said the tweet from one @devforpeace twitter handle.

The other tweet has responded to this one and suggested Economic Affairs secretary be repatriated to his parent cadre from his current position in the North Block.

“?@devforpeace? @arunjaitley @Swamy39 Shaktikanta should be sent back to TN. He has served the nation a lot,” said the tweet from @cominvestor twitter handle.

The BJP leader has responded to both these twitter handles and suggested that not only a “property case” was pending against Economic Affairs Secretary in the state but also alleged Das of “assisting PC swallow Mahabalipuram prime locations”.

In Swamy’s lexicon, PC stands for former Finance Minister P Chidambaram. Both Swamy and Chidampbaram are bitter political adversaries in their home state of Tamil Nadu.

Swamy’s hit at Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das appeared a brazen defiance of Narendra Modi government’s caution of political leaders attacking disciplined government servants.

“The party (BJP) has of course said that they don’t share Swamy’s view. I would also add one more line from the point of view of discipline of Indian politicians to what extent should we attack those … this discipline and constraints of whose offices prevent them from responding and this has happened more than once,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said during a press conference yesterday to calm down the controversy surrounding Swamy’s attack on CEA Arvind Subramanian Swamy.

It seems Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das is the third person after RBI Governor and CEA to have come under the line of Subramanian Swamy’s line of fire.