Modi denies Kushwaha private secretary of his choice

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has nixed rural development minister Upendra Kushwaha's proposal to appoint Ravinder Kumar, a 2011 batch IAS officer of Sikkim cadre, as his private secretary.

This comes days after DoPT put the appointment of private secretaries of several ministers, including those of home minister Rajnath Singh and HRD minister Smriti Irani, on hold pending clearance by the ACC, only to follow up with a policy announcement that none of the private secretaries or OSDs who had served with a minister of any previous regime may be hired by ministers in the current dispensation.

Though that order was communicated personally to each minister, the latest directive relating to rejection of appointment of Ravinder Kumar has been uploaded on the DoPT website. "The Prime Minister has not approved the proposal of the department of rural development for appointment of Ravinder Kumar, IAS, as private secretary to the minster of state for rural development, Panchayati Raj and drinking water sanitation (Upendra Kushwaha)," says the DoPT office memorandum sent to rural development secretary L C Goyal.

A copy of the order has also been addressed to director, PMO V Sheshadri, joint secretary in Cabinet secretariat Nivedita Shukla, Sikkim chief secretary and Ravinder Kumar himself, besides others.

Modi holds direct charge of the personnel ministry, though there is also an MoS, Jitendra Singh, looking after day-to-day affairs of the department.

Earlier, ministers were deprived of their preferences for PS due to the DoPT order ruling out officers who had been associated with the earlier regime. Among them was Alok Singh, Rajnath's choice who had earlier served with Salman Khurshid, Abhinav Kumar, the former PS to Shashi Tharoor who had joined as MoS for home Kiren Rijiju's PS, besides the PS of Irani, who had earlier been with steel minister in UPA regime, Beni Prasad Verma.