A cold war of sorts is brewing among the IAS officers in Andhra Pradesh these days, creating an embarrassing situation for chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
On Saturday, chief secretary L V Subrahmanyam issued a show cause notice to principal secretary (protocol) in the chief minister’s office (CMO) Praveen Prakash for bypassing him and including certain items in the agenda for the recent cabinet meeting.
Subrahmanyam charged Praveen Prakash with introducing items without following the laid down procedure.
The agenda for any cabinet meeting is finalised only by the chief secretary and principal secretary (political) is not authorised to make any changes.
Apparently, the chief secretary was peeved with Praveen Prakash for trying to dominate the CMO.
Last week, Praveen Prakash issued a controversial GO, modifying the business rules, on the pretext that senior IAS officers are not following instructions from the chief minister or CMO in issuing government orders (GOs) on time.
Praveen Prakash threatened to serve show cause notices on top IAS officers, if they failed to issue orders within stipulated periods for implementation of the orders of the chief minister and CMO.
His orders apparently led to rumblings in the bureaucracy. Since Praveen Prakash was brought from Delhi to Amaravati by Jagan directly to head the general administration department, he has started acting independently, which is not being taken kindly by other IAS officers.
Now, the show cause notice by the chief secretary to Praveen Prakash has clearly exposed chinks in Jagan’s administration.