KOLKATA: Amid the ongoing tussle with the central government, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that Alapan Bandyopadhyay has retired as the Bengal chief secretary. Mamata Banerjee on Monday said she was appointing West Bengal”s Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay as Chief Advisor for three years effective from Tuesday.
The chief minister told newspersons here that the central government had asked Bandopadhyay to report to Delhi’s North Block on Tuesday, but she added an officer cannot join a new office without permission from the state administration.
“The CS got a letter from the Centre asking him to join North Block by tomorrow. This is not a reply to my letter but to the CS. I have not received any reply from it to the letter which I had sent earlier today,” she said.
The chief minister earlier in the day had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to withdraw the Centre”s order recalling the Chief Secretary, and asserted her government “cannot release, and is not releasing” the top bureaucrat.
The move opens up various possibilities on possible action by the Central government against the top bureaucrat. It also lays bare the adversarial relationship between the state and central government which has been simmering for some time and which seems to be deteriorating into what many observers described as a no holds barred battle.
“We are not relieving him (Bandopadhyay). He has superannuated today, but he will act as chief advisor to the CM for the next three years,” Banerjee said.
The Centre, in a surprise move, had on May 28 night sought Bandyopadhyay”s services and asked the state government to immediately release the top bureaucrat, hours after Banerjee met the Prime Minister at Kalaikunda airbase for 15 minutes instead of a longer scheduled review meeting of the post-cyclone situation in West Bengal.
Bandyopadhyay, a 1987-batch IAS officer of West Bengal cadre, was scheduled to retire on Monday after completion of 60 years of age. However, he was granted a three-month extension as Chief Secretary of West Bengal by the Centre in view of his work in managing the ongoing COVID pandemic.
The chief ministers statement that her state has allowed Bandopadhyay to retire indicates that the state government is not utilising the Centres permission to grant the chief secretary an extension. Home Secretary HK Dwidevi will be the new chief secretary and BP Gopalika would come in Dwivedis place, Banerjee said. At the press conference, the chief minister told reporters that Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were trying to bulldoze the federal structure of the country and creating problems for the state as they were unable to digest the BJPs defeat in the recently concluded assembly elections.
