THE GUJARAT CADRE NEXUS
The newly appointed chief election commissioner of India, Achal Kumar Joti, should be a happy man. His tenure will only be for a little over six months, but he gets one more chance to serve his home state. The 1975 batch former IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre will be overseeing the assembly elections there and in Himachal Pradesh before demitting office in January 2018. Both states will go to the polls by late 2017.
Joti’s appointment reconfirms that when Narendra Modi moved to Delhi in 2014 he not only brought along the Gujarat model but also many of the bureaucrats who nurtured and managed it. The former chief secretary of Gujarat was one of them. Although there was speculation that current home secretary Rajiv Mehershi, 62, of the Rajasthan cadre would be made the CEC, Modi opted for Joti, even for a short term. According to sources, there are over 70 officers today—serving and retired—from Gujarat who have been entrusted with key national responsibilities.
Fourteen IAS officers have been transferred from Gujarat to the Centre since Modi became PM in 2014, among them Hasmukh Adhia (revenue secretary), Rita Teotia (commerce secretary), P.K. Pujari (secretary, ministry of power), Tapan Rai (secretary, corporate affairs), Arvind Kumar Sharma (joint secretary, PMO), R.P. Gupta (joint secretary, coal), Raj Kumar (joint secretary, economic affairs), Atanu Chakraborty (director-general of hydrocarbons), Anita Karwal (joint secretary, HRD ministry) and Guruprasad Mohapatra (chairman, Airports Authority of India). Nearly half a dozen Gujarat-cadre IPS officers, such as Rakesh Asthana and Y.C. Modi, also occupy key positions in the CBI. A.K. Pattanaik is now CEO of the national intelligence grid.