‘Jungle’ politics irk IAS officers

Hyderabad, April 8: While some IAS officers have been deployed in tourist places for election duty, most officers from the state ended up in deep forests or Naxal-hit areas.

Unhappy with their postings, some officers have written to the ministry of personnel on the so-called “politics in allotment of poll duties”.
In all, 90 IAS officers of the AP cadre have been called for poll duty across the country. Apart from IAS, some IPS, IFS and IRS officers also have been roped in for election duty.
After their meeting in New Delhi last fortnight, the officers had thought that their postings would be done in a transparent way.
But, when the orders were actually received, the state officers were surprised to see that while some got “cool” places, others were shunted to “jungles”.
“Some senior officers with connections might have influenced the postings,” said a senior officer who was posted to a Northeast state.
Sources in the ministry said the names were picked through a “random” manner with no preference being given to anybody.
Senior officers like Mr C. B.S. Venkata Ramana, Mr A.K. Parida, Mr V.K. Agarwal are some of the lucky officers who got poll duty at hassle-free places like Kadalur, Ooty, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Manali and Darjeeling.
However, Mr K. Lakminarayana, sugar commissioner, was posted at Gachiroli in Maharashtra, a troubled zone and a Naxal bastion.
Mr Omar Jaleel and S. Balasubarmanyam were posted in Bihar. “To reach some places it takes more than 24 hours and there is no road network to move around,” said an officer who was posted in the Orissa-Bihar border.
However, two officers from the state would oversee Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi at Rarbareli and Amethi Lok Sabha constituencies. Principal secretaries Mr Sahoo, Mr Prasanth Mahapatra are supervising the election in these key constituencies.

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