New man at the Raj Bhavan Eyes on the Secretariat

A new Governor has come and perhaps this is the first time that the appointment of a full fledged person to occupy the Raj Bhavan has evoked so much interest as now. This is all that more so given that new incumbent Ajay Kumar Bhalla was the Union Home Secretary when violence erupted on May 3, 2023 and he was at the same post till his retirement some time back. In short a man who must be well tuned with the ongoing violence and hence in a position to give a certain sense of direction to how the Government should proceed with dealing with the issue at hand. Early days yet, but the coming in of Bhalla as the Governor of Manipur has obviously evoked a lot of interest amongst the people who have been keenly following the ongoing conflict with more than just a cursory interest. And significantly the interests in his appointment must have cut both ways and there is every reason that Delhi must have zeroed in on his name with a clear agenda. Earn the confidence of the people who are on either side of the clash divide, hear their stories and give the correct assessment could be some of the briefs given by Delhi before he was sent here. These are all assumptions, but assumptions that do not hurt the office of the Governor and certainly not the interests of anyone. Much will depend on how the State Government reaches out to him and it would ne interesting to see how the new Governor jells with the other individuals hand picked by the Centre including Security Advisor Kuldiep Singh, DGP Rajiv Singh, the IG of the Assam Rifles (South), IG of Assam Rifles (North), the heads of the CRPF and BSF etc. With Chief Secretary Vineet Joshi already transferred to Delhi, all eyes will be on who gets to be named the next Chief Secretary. Already three names- Prashant Kumar Singh, Rajesh Agarwal and Vivek Kumar Dewangan are doing the round and for reasons which must be obvious to all, Manipur is keenly watching who gets the nod. Even as the three senior IAS officers have been tipped as the most probables to be named the next Chief Secretary, the Naga People’s Organisation has asserted the need for someone from the Naga community to be the next Chief Secretary. The name which NPO has highlighted is K Moses Chalai, an IAS officer of the 1990 batch and hence senior to the three names doing the round. The NPO has also taken the trouble to spell out how two other Naga IAS officers were left out in the cold when the time for naming a new Chief Secretary came up and mentioned the names of Ameising Luikham and Ram-nganing Muivah, the present MLA of Ukhrul Assembly Constituency. Remains to be seen how well Delhi would take to the stand of the NPO, for remember today it is not the Chief Minister who gets to decide who becomes the Chief Secretary or the DGP, but Delhi.

Other than the seniority question, one merit that stands out in the assertion of the NPO lies in the fact that K Moses Chalai belongs to the Naga community, a community which has remained neutral in the ongoing conflict. It stands that community should not stand in the way of naming anyone to a post as important as the Chief Secretary or the DGP, but given the situation, it perhaps makes sense to appoint a native of Manipur, a native but whose community has remained strictly neutral. How Delhi reads the situation remains to be seen, but the interests of all should be taken into consideration and it would also help for the NPO and other Naga civil society organisations to acknowledge that today key appointments such as the DGP or the Chief Secretary are no longer in the hands of the Chief Minister. It is Delhi which has been calling the shots and there is no reason to believe that this would be any different when the new Chief Secretary is named. The coming in of the new Governor and the yet to be named Chief Secretary will be all that more crucial given that the Chief Minister himself has publicly admitted that the State failed to protect the lives and properties of the people and called for all to forget and forgive the past mistakes. In such a scenario the potential of the Chief Secretary pitching in his or her bit to extend the healing balm cannot be ruled out and this is perhaps where the importance of the next Chief Secretary needs to be seen.