Now, BJP-led Haryana government transfers IAS Ashok Khemka; 46th in 22 years

CHANDIGARH: Haryana's BJP government on Wednesday transferred whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka to a low profile post just four months after appointing him as state transport commissioner. Only last week, while welcoming the CAG report on the land deals involving Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra, Khemka had expressed his unhappiness by tweeting that he continued to face the "stigma of chargesheet".

In a late evening development on Wednesday, the state government transferred Khemka to the post of secretary and director general of state archaeology and museums department.

The government did not mention any reason for his transfer and just included his name in the list of nine IAS officers who were transferred on Wednesday. Khemka also refused to comment. This would be his 46th transfer in 22 years of service as an IAS officer.

In the transport department, Khemka had denied fitness certificates to over-sized trucks and trailers for carrying automobiles, leading to truckers' strike in January. Two days after 60,000 trucks and trailers went off the roads, the state government gave them one year's time to follow the rules for vehicle fitness and the transporters called off the strike. Sources say Khemka's tough stand for implementation of rules may have irritated the transporters' lobby.

The Hooda government also gave him low profile assignments after he cancelled the mutation of land deal between Vadra and real estate giant DLF in 2012. Then, he was initially sent to the Haryana Seed Development Corporation but was further transferred to the archives department after he exposed irregularities in the corporation.

During the Lok Sabha polls and assembly polls in 2014, the BJP prominently raised the issue of Vadra land deals and alleged victimization of honest officers during the Congress regime.

Less than two months after the Narendra Modi government took over, the Civil Services Board in July 2014 approved his request for a central deputation. Earlier, his name was not included in the Centre's offer list because of a chargesheet issued by the then Hooda government against him in connection with the Vadra-DLF land deal.

Khemka was not sent to the Centre on central deputation but the Khattar government in Haryana in November 2014 had brought Khemka into the mainstream of bureaucracy by handing over the responsibility of transport department.