What mood is the Maharashtra Government in? Now that Bhushan Gagrani is Mumbai Municipal Commissioner, Saurabh Rao is Thane Municipal Commissioner and Kailash Shinde is Navi-Mumbai Municipal Commissioner, finally the dust has settled. Frankly both CM and DCM’s didn’t want any change till Lok Sabha was done. In fact yesterday in front of everyone, the Chief Minister fired and made his displeasure public too on an officer, but little did CM know, the work was already done. Have you all seen the movies “Agent Vinod” and “The Black Mamba”? It was not tolerated in Maharashtra, but it kind of worked in Delhi.
Chalo, finally the gang-war is over but in this unnecessarily the name of CS Nitin Kareer was dragged that it was him who was pursuing the matter with election Commissioner to change Chahal. In-fact, no one knows this, but his own fate hangs in balance as till now the Maharashtra Government HAS NOT sent request for his term extension to Delhi, as Kareer retires on the 31st of March. If not given an extension, which is extremely difficult to digest for me, the next 3 seniority wise to become Chief Secretary that will remain in contention are: A. Sujata Saunik (Chance for Maharashtra to make the first women CS, which they lost during Medha Gadgil) B. Rajesh Kumar. C. Nitin Gadre.
By the way, the news of Sanjay Mukherjee becoming the new Mumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner was planted by papers to create confusion. The three names sent in panel for Mumbai Municipal Commissioner to the Election Commission were that of Bhushan Gagrani, Anil Diggikar and Sanjay Sethi. Why would Eknath Shinde want to disturb MMRDA now? Why Journalists just don’t use logic before printing anything?
Now finally Iqbal Singh Chahal can breathe! At first, people were contemplating that Gagrani would NOT become the MC. Now, I was dead sure that if it has to be anyone it has to be Bhushan Gagrani and not any officer who does not come to office for weeks and weeks. Chahal will be appointed as Principal Secretary to the CM. I don’t understand why Diggikar was demoted so badly? Call it an exchange of posts between him and Singhal, but both are almost 7 batches away from each other. Koi izzat hai ki nahi? Gagrani will now have to take care of newly appointed Additional Commissioner Abhijit Bangar who firmly believes that his brother is his best friend and the brother is ex-IRS too…Rest AMC’s are nice and would love Gagrani as their boss.
In many orders that came, I was particularly very happy that even temporarily, Sujata Dhole has been sent back to the GST department. She was AMC at Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation. But I say temporarily, as I feel in the next 3 months she will become Panvel civic chief. Husband, Dilip Dhole, who is also from GST, is already Jt MD at CIDCO. Ganesh Deshmukh, keep your eyes and ears open. P. Velarasu was almost finalized for Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, but don’t know what happened where? I think Kailash Shinde didn’t want to work in CIDCO given his reputation of being a DF loyalist. Also, one friend has replaced another. Rajesh Narvekar and Kailash Shinde worked together at the CMO when Fadnavis was the CM. So the handover will not be a problem! Narvekar is the new Co-op Commissioner, but but, he is not joining, is what I have heard. SRA still remains, guess at the end of April when Lokhande retires, it should be done.
– Vikrant Hemant Joshi
