SUCCESSION BUZZ AT MEA

Though foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale still has five months to go before the end of his tenure, babu corridors are already abuzz with talk about his possible successor.

Usually, this would be a routine, with the senior-most diplomat getting the top post.

But of late there has been no predictable pattern or convention when governments choose a foreign secretary, a case in point being current Union foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who was India’s envoy to the US when Prime Minister Narendra Modi ejected the then foreign secretary Sujatha Singh and brought him in.

At present, the punters are betting on Syed Akbaruddin, India’s permanent representative at the United Nations, replacing Mr Gokhale.

If that happens, it would mean that he would have stepped over several batches of IFS officers, including Ruchi Ghanashyam, currently our high commissioner in London, who is also the senior-most and has a natural claim to the post.

The other name in the succession tussle is that of Harshvardhan Shringla, the current ambassador to the US. Mr Akbaruddin is junior to both.

The foreign secretary’s selection is done by the Prime Minister, often in consultation with the ministry of external affairs.

But since Mr Modi has often done “out-of-the-box” thinking in babu appointments, it remains to be seen whether this time the government goes by “convention” or chooses to spring a surprise.