Sandesh Prabhudesai
19 September 1999
Is it a tug-of-war between chief minister Luizinho Faleiro and chief secretary Seva Ram Sharma or two top officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs in Delhi, one wonders here, the way moves are being made to replace the chief secretary.
After making him powerless almost over a month ago, Faleiro managed to get Sharma's transfer order on 14 September during Delhi visit, while also seeking Congress president Sonia Gandhi's permission for the cabinet expansion, to avoid a rebellion within.
Faleiro was in such a hurry that he did not even wait for Sharma's successor Ashok Nath, presently the home secretary in Delhi, to come down and relieve the former. The local authorities issued a circular that Ashok Kumar, the state development commissioner, would take over from him for the time being.
Probably with determination to fight the battle against his consistent humiliation till the end, Sharma refused to leave the post, pointing out at the letter the state government had received from Amitabh Kumar, the deputy secretary of MHA, on 15 September that he would hand over the charge to Nath, his successor.
But since Nath could be relieved only after 6 October due to election code of conduct, Faleiro managed to get another letter from the MHA overnight, but this time from the additional secretary P D Shenoy, dated 17 September. It instructs Sharma to hand over the charge to the state development commissioner and not his successor.
Meanwhile, Faleiro has issued orders to all the secretaries and other bureaucrats to mark CS' files to Ashok Kumar and not Sharma, who still holds the charge of the post. Verbal instructions are also being issued to withdraw Sharma's official cars and even the furniture from his office.
Implementing the order he had issued in August to attach Sharma's personal staff to the CMO, Faleiro has now also told them to report to his office from Monday. While stripping him off all the major portfolios in August itself, Faleiro had also taken away his legal powers to write confidential reports of his subordinates with retrospective effect from 9 June.
The cold war between Faleiro and Sharma is on since the former has taken over on 9 June, probably due to the latter's action to forward one complaint regarding Faleiro's accumulated wealth to the Public Men's Corruption Commission during the President rule. Faleiro however calls him the most incompetent man.
While it is to be seen for how long the battle of handing over the charge would go on, its reflection is however also seen in the MHA in Delhi, from where two contradictory orders are being issued by two top officials.
Meanwhile, Faleiro has also managed to take a cabinet decision to withdraw from the AGMU cadre, meant for the purpose of posting IAS and IPS officers, for the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa Mizoram and union territories. Goa now plans to have its own state cadre, as a direct outshoot of this unprecedented controversy.
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