MANTRALAYA’S BABUDOM TAKES IT EASY, AS POLITICS BOILS OVER

Mumbai: With Maharashtra in a furore over the Shiva Sena rebellion, the state’s bureaucratic apparatus had downtime on a cabinet-meeting day for the first time in a long time.

However, the rumour mill worked overtime, especially within the IAS community, as well as Maharashtra cadre officers in the CMO and other important state government departments.

“The weekly cabinet meeting days are typically preceded by hectic lobbying, with ministerial aides, MLAs and every stakeholder in the government crowding bureaucrats’ offices to push their pet issues through to the council of ministers or to finalize preparatory work for cabinet notes. This week, the day saw no such activity,” a senior secretariat official told First India.

Even as actual productivity was put on the backburner, the rumour mill worked overtime about possible political scenarios that could emerge this week.

“While many bureaucrats could take it easy on Wednesday, the more conscientious secretaries, joint secretaries and the like would have spent the time paying attention to their own departments and the pending work there,” said another bureaucrat.

For Mantralaya babudom, it is a given that governments come and go while they remain safe on their respective bureaucratic perches. The only aspect that worries both Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers is the possibility of potentially being transferred out of their posts.

“Only those perceived to be close to the ruling dispensation would be distressed over their prospects in the case of a change in government. They had only just cemented their positions within the MVA dispensation after a period of two-and-a-half years of constant speculation of a government collapse and, suddenly, they’ve had the rug pulled out from under their feet,” this person added.