Munnar demolition man is back, with a ‘demotion’

Suresh Kumar, the IAS officer who led the aggressive Munnar demolition drive, has been accommodated as Managing Director of Agriculture Development Bank.

Suresh kumar, chief minister V S Achuthanandan’s blue-eyed boy who was pushed into obscurity for over two months after he led the aggressive Munnar demolition drive, has now been accommodated as Managing Director of Agriculture Development Bank, a relatively junior post he had held years before.

Suresh Kumar had gone on leave in August citing loss of eyesight. Ever since, he was out of work. Though he publicly aired his desire to get back to work in Munnar, it was ignored.

Suresh Kumar’s tenure as the Munnar Task Force head was numbered right from the time he put the CPI in the dock and knocked down a portion of the party’s office in Munnar. The Chief Minister, too, was forced to give him a public dressing down. He said that Suresh Kumar had committed a mistake.

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To begin with, the Task Force’s aggressive no-nonsense approach was cheered. But gradually it lost steam and got embroiled in legal tangles. All the three members of the task force — Rishi Raj Singh and Raju Narayanaswamy being the other two — were gradually eased out.

The long delay in reinstating Suresh Kumar, a highly-placed source said, happened because none of the ministers were keen to have the bureaucrat in their team. The Chief Minister, the source said, wanted to rehabilitate him either as the IT Secretary or the Thiruvananthapuram Collector. Both the proposals were shot down by the Cabinet.

Suresh Kumar, who was out in the cold during the UDF tenure, got a new lease of life when Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan made him the Additional Secretary to the Chief Minister.

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