Alok Ranjan successor may also come from Centre, race hots up

Lucknow: As the date of retirement of Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Alok Ranjan is approaching , the aspirants for the top bureaucratic post have started doing rounds in the political circles to get to the top post. Though,the grapevine suggests ,Ranjan may get an extension on the basis of his sheer competence and popularity, in general.

It is widely believed that Alok Ranjan has been a major reason behind the credibility of the Akhilesh Yadav government in the recent past and the chief minister himself is very happy over the progress of two his dream projects- Lucknow Metro and Lucknow- Agra Expressway being personally monitored by the Chief Secretary. The present chief secretary seems to enjoy confidence of Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and CM Akhilesh Yadav alike , a rare phenomenon in the present government.

Those who are in run for the coveted posts included 1979- batch Anil Kumar Gupta and two 1982- batch IAS officers Praveer Kumar and Deepak Singhal. Of these Praveer,though, holds an edge simply because he is already the Agriculture Production Commissioner (APC), the post considered next to the chief secretary. The two dark horses in the run are, coincidentally 1982-batch officers Rohit nandan and Neeraj Kumar Gupta-both in the Centre as secretaries.

Many believe that Akhilesh Yadav has been unduly lenient to his officers even in the case of defying him blatantly. In one such case, CM himself tasked the Commissioner of Lucknow Mahesh Kumar Gupta to streamline the traffic of the state capital. Despite some indiscreet decisions to make some routes one-way, the traffic scene in the state capital goes from bad to worse and direct dictats of the CM went unattended. People now ask-if the same thing could have happened in the case of Mayawati. Also the soft attitude of the state government towards Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rajesh Pandey is also beyond explanation because traffic comes directly under him and the CM is none too happy about it.