Julio Ribeiro

Did PM Modi think through the matter before issuing the controversial transfer order of Alapan Bandyopadhyay, the then Chief Secretary to the West Bengal Government? Did he not take into consideration the question of Centre-state relations and the equally vital issue of the effect of the transfer order on the morale of civil service officers?

I am inclined to judge him harshly in this instance. He has obviously been overtaken by personal pique and a vague motive of instant revenge. This is what a PM of a huge democracy needs to eschew, even if it militates against his basic nature. Faced by much bigger problems — Covid, the shortage of vaccines and now Cyclone Yaas, he should have avoided this new confrontation.

Modi made an aerial survey of the cyclone-affected districts of Bengal. He had intimated Mamata of his tour but had not invited her to join him in his aircraft. That would have been a gracious gesture, but then, he had just been humbled at the hustings by her and that had not gone down well with him.

Mamata, accompanied by her Chief Secretary, had made her own aerial survey on the same morning of Modi's arrival. She had been asked to attend a meeting to discuss the cyclone’s havoc with the PM at 2.30 pm. She made her survey plans so as to arrive in time but her aircraft had to defer to the PM’s aircraft as per security protocols. She should have been forewarned about this possibility earlier and rescheduled her survey timings accordingly, but she did not. Mamata is a fighter we know. But she would be well advised to avoid such fights. In her position, she should pick her fights tactically.

Protocol demands that the CM and the CS should be present to receive the PM when he lands in his aircraft anywhere in the state. Mamata faltered on that count. The CS should have advised her but does not seem to have done so.

Not protocol, but tact and wisdom demanded that the PM should not include his party men in one-to-one discussions with the CM of a state who belongs to an opposition party, in particular, and if I may be excused, even his own party Suvendu Adhikari, the leader of the opposition — a red rag to Mamata’s bull — was included in the discussion. Incidentally, the Governor, who is also a serial tormentor of the CM, was also present but the CM could not legitimately object to him being there because Governors are also supposed to accompany the PM during a state visit.

Mamata appears to have taken unkindly to Adhikari’s presence and exited the meeting after handing over a memorandum about the cyclone to the PM. The CS naturally left along with his boss to whom he reports daily. I would have done similarly in his place. IAS and IPS officers have been programmed to follow the orders, and even wishes sometimes, of the CM of the state they have been allotted.

Modi’s design in including Adhikari in the discussions is not clear. He knew that Mamata would react in the only manner she is known to react when confronted by a ‘fait accompli’ like this one. Either he wanted to provoke her or he intended by forcing her to share the honours with her ‘bete noire’ to humble her for humbling him at the hustings.

Only four days before the meeting, on May 24, the Modi government had granted its concurrence to the CS’s extension in service for three months. And on May 28, obviously dictating an order from the very room where the cyclone meeting was being held, Modi transferred the CS to Delhi to report there on May 31.

It was obvious that the transfer was ordered as a punishment in order to take revenge because he felt slighted by the Bengal CM — or is it revenge for having lost the Assembly elections to her so convincingly?

The transfer order, in all respects, is illegal. It cannot be sustained in any court of law. Bandyopadhyay is an officer of an All-India Service, governed by the AIS rules. None of the ingredients of the rules were followed in the case of his transfer. There have to be consultations between the Central and state governments and the officer’s consent obtained. None of these requirements preceded this transfer. The officer was to retire in normal course on May 31. He had been given an extension of three months to perform the role of the Chief Secretary of Bengal and not for any role in the Centre.

Modi has a history of ruthlessness in Gujarat. He brooks no dissent from officers. When the then DGP of Gujarat and the police allowed a minister to sit in his control room to direct police operations during the 2002 riots, he displayed impotence against a political authority who would not stop at anything to assert himself. I can see this tendency in the present matter. Being told that the rules will not sustain his order transferring the officer to Delhi, he has resorted to the Disaster Management Act to settle scores!

But with whom does he need to settle scores? Mamata or the innocent member of an elite service conceived by the ‘Iron Man’, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, also hailing from Gujarat, as an institution which is permanent and will assure continuity in administration, even when one elected party replaces another at the helm? Bandyopadhyay served the CPM government as loyally as he later served the TMC. That is what we were taught to do at our academies.

What does Modi want IAS and IPS officers allotted to different states to do? Does he want them to disregard the orders of their respective governments? Is the Centre going to rule the states from Delhi? Would he have allowed that in Gujarat when he was the CM there? Most of all, does he want a federal form of government or not? These are questions he must ask himself before venting his spleen on service officers.