The Prime Minister’s Office on Monday shot down Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan’s request to spare a senior Kerala cadre IAS official now on deputation in New Delhi to be the state Chief Secretary. The last incumbent, Lizzie Jacob, had decided to quit in a huff two days ago, after VS slammed her in public.VS had called up the PMO asking to spare either Vinod Rai, secretary to the Finance Ministry, or Commerce Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai to become the state Chief Secretary. But T K Nair, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, is learnt to have informed the Chief Minister on Monday that neither could be spared.Sources say a couple of other state cadre officers on deputation in New Delhi who were being considered include Gopal Krishna Pillai’s wife and Secretary (Labour and Employment) Sudha Pillai and Principal Adviser, Planning Commission, Satyanarayan Dash, who are not keen to come back to Kerala.While the hunt goes on for a Chief Secretary, a spurt of incidents, involving the IAS officer becoming the public butt of ministerial wrath after the Left Government came to power, is leaving the bureaucrats fuming. After Jacob confirmed her exit, IAS officials trooped into the CM’s home in a large group on Sunday, protesting against the way things were moving.Jacob, who had applied for three months leave, decided not to return to her job even after VS asked her to think again and then went on posturing that she did err in sanctioning the Central funds with a State component attached for a helipad for ISRO at its site for the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology without the Cabinet sanction. This was though Jacob was reportedly directed by the PMO to do so.IAS officials have been under scanner since VS took charge. VS had packed off then Chief Secretary Mohammed Riyazuddin soon after assuming office, saying he was too inefficient. His Minister for Cooperation, G Sudhakaran, went further. He said publicly that no dog could hope to become respectable just because someone hung a board with IAS written on it around its neck, while removing a senior IAS officer heading the State Cooperative Bank.Sudhakaran had again gone live on TV calling another senior IAS officer, Bharat Bhushan, names before Bhushan left to New Delhi on deputation. Food Minister C Divakaran also publicly blasted and removed another IAS officer, Jacob Thomas, who was heading the State Civil Supplies Corporation and refused to fall in line.K Suresh Kumar, the officer who headed the CM’s handpicked special task force for the Munnar demolitions, was ridiculed and humiliated by sections of the CPM leadership and the CPI and other Left constituents and now has no post.Another official looking into the Munnar Task Force, Raju Narayanaswamy, the 1991 IAS-topper known for his run-ins with the political establishment, said he was going on long leave a fortnight ago, after the Government decided to transfer out en masse his handpicked team of officials from the demolition team. Narayanaswamy relented after the Revenue Minister requested him to stay on and agreed to retain his team.The IAS Officers Association, led by its secretary V Venu and the CM’s Principal Secretary Sheela Thomas, had led 40 officers to the CM’s residence to inform its protest. Sources say the Association had also conveyed its protest over the Kerala Government disregarding seniority norms to hand the Chief Secretary’s charge in the interim to KJ Mathew, a relatively junior officer, overlooking the senior-most claimant, P J Thomas .
