Kolkata, (Samajweekly) The Raj Bhavan-State Secretariat barneys in West Bengal over the choice of the new Principal Secretary to the Governor House seems to be getting murkier as none of the three names proposed by the state government for the chair has received the governor’s consent yet.
Instead, according to sources, the office of the constitutional head of the state has proposed a fourth alternative for the chair of the Principal Secretary to Governor C.V. Ananda Bose.
After transferring the earlier Principal Secretary Nandini Chakroborty from the chair on February 15, the state personnel & administrative reforms department forwarded the names of Atri Bhattacharya (state Sundarban affairs department secretary), Barun Kumar Roy (labour department secretary) and Ajit Ranjan Bardhan (state north Bengal department secretary) to the Raj Bhavan as three choices for replacement.
However, as per latest information, none of the three choices is to the liking of the Governor House and instead the latter wants Subrata Gupta, who is currently the secretary to the food processing industries & horticulture department.
Though it is learnt that the Governor House has already communicated to the state secretariat about its choice. However, neither the Governor House nor the state secretariat had made any official announcement on this count.
Informed sources said that the option for the state secretariat now is either to accept the governor’s choice or to resend the names suggested by it to the Governor House.
“If the state secretariat accepts the choice of the Governor House, the controversy will be over for the time being at least. But if the state secretariat opts for the second choice that it can be well inferred that the drama is far from being over as yet,” said a retired bureaucrat of West Bengal cadre on strict condition of anonymity.
Recently, the Governor House asked the replacement of the erstwhile Principal Secretary to the governor Nandini Chakroborty. It had also complained against Chakroborty of misleading the state secretariat about the functioning of the Governor House.
After initial hesitations the state personnel & administrative reforms department, on February 15, though ordered for Chakroborty’s transfer, had not named her replacement.
Chakroborty is currently the state tourism department secretary.
