Express News Service
RAIPUR/NEW DELHI: IAS officer B V R Subrahmanyam was on Wednesday appointed Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir in place of B B Vyas, who was accommodated as an advisor of Governor N N Vohra. Supercop and anti-Naxal expert K Vijay Kumar was also inducted as Vohra’s advisor, according to an official communique.
The names of advisors were cleared by the Union Home Ministry after the state was put under the Governor’s rule on Wednesday, following the withdrawal of support by the BJP to the PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government on Tuesday. The state Assembly has been put under suspended animation.
Subrahmanyam, a 1987 batch officer of Chhattisgarh cadre, who was posted as Additional Chief Secretary (Home) in Chhattisgarh before being sent to J&K, is an experienced officer who worked as private secretary to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during UPA-I and had spent nearly a decade in the PMO.
He also worked in the World Bank in Washington on deputation for three years. He had another stint in Narendra Modi’s PMO till March 2015.
Vyas was given a year’s extension in service as chief secretary with effect from June 1. It was his third consecutive extension. Vyas, according to sources, was very close to Mehbooba Mufti.
This is the fourth time in the last 10 years and eighth time since 1977 that the Governor’s rule has been imposed in J&K.
A Home Ministry spokesperson said, “The President has approved imposition of the Governor’s rule in J&K with immediate effect.”
Soon thereafter, Governor Vohra, who has been in the same role four times before as well, assumed the role of the chief administrator in the state.
President Ram Nath Kovind was abroad when Governor Vohra sent his report to Rashtrapati Bhavan recommending imposition of Governor’s rule. The details of the Governor’s report were immediately sent to Suriname where Kovind was scheduled to land at 3 am IST. The President’s assent was conveyed to the home ministry by 6 am IST.
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