Just before another election season commences with assembly polls in Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, the Narendra Modi government has initiated a big shake-up in the bureaucracy. The country now has a new cabinet secretary, along with new secretaries to manage all major and important ministries.
The message is clear: infuse fresh blood to rejuvenate the bureaucracy. Except Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief Tapan Kumar Deka, no officer has got a service extension. Some of the appointees have been given their new assignments two to three months in advance, ensuring a smoother transition and to escape the election period. After the two assembly elections, for which results will be declared on October 4, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi may head for polls soon after.
With this bureaucratic shake-up, the government has also sent a message of pushing reforms in appointments. The biggest surprise came with an advertisement from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), seeking applications for the 10 posts of joint secretary and 35 deputy secretary/director level positions via the lateral entry mechanism.
After the BJP’s setbacks in the general election, some bureaucrats have had the impression that the Modi government, in its third term, may not be able to freely take big decisions and may have to share control with its key coalition partners. So far, there is little evidence of that. In fact, Modi has used every opportunity to reject such a perception.
For now, though, the impending election season has forced the government to ask the UPSC to cancel the lateral entry plan. On August 20, minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions Jitendra Singh wrote to UPSC chairperson Priti Sudan, asking that the advertisements be withdrawn and plans for the recruitment cancelled. Singh’s move followed protests by the Opposition. Even BJP ally Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) declared that entry into government service without quotas set for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (OBC) was unacceptable.
The UPSC’s move to recruit 45 middle-level officers would have been the single-biggest lateral entry ever done in the national bureaucracy. So far, 63 appointments have been made through lateral entry, of which 35 appointments were from the private sector. Latest data suggests that 57 officers currently hold such positions in ministries and departments.
The idea was to bring sector-specific expertise into policy-making, along with gaining speed to execute programmes and cut red-tape. However, lateral entry is seen as a direct challenge to the established bureaucrats’ club. Secondly, Opposition parties had threatened a nationwide stir against the move.
“Lateral entry is an attack on Dalits, OBCs and adivasis,” Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, remarked on social media platform X. Rahul is trying to link the issue to the social justice narrative that he has been trying to build.
The advertisement for the recruitment—although minuscule in comparison to the bureaucracy’s brigade stationed in New Delhi—had called for talented Indians to apply. BJP insiders argue that the concept of lateral entry was first introduced under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime and was strongly endorsed by the Second Administrative Reforms Commission established in 2005.
Earlier, professionals such as Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Bimal Jalan, Vijay Kelkar and R.V. Shahi had worked as secretaries. In the previous two terms of the Modi government, Parameswaran Iyer and Rajesh Kotecha worked as well. The Modi government, in its first term, had opened up entry for nine professionals to mid-level posts, but got limited success. The biggest hurdle faced was resistance from peer groups.
In the government’s third term, the real test will not only be to get the best out of the new recruits but also to sell this reform politically. In the past, the BJP’s communicators have not been able to sell the big reforms of the Modi government 2.0. The list includes the Agniveer military recruitment scheme, agricultural reforms and even implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. In fact, the farm reforms had to be withdrawn.
In the case of lateral bureaucratic entry too, the challenge will be to ensure that the political messaging is clear. The BJP can’t afford to further damage its vote-bank among the beneficiaries of reservations—Dalits, OBCs and tribal communities.
The new executive has got a facelift with the erstwhile finance secretary T.V. Somanathan walking into the office of cabinet secretary and replacing Rajiv Gauba. Govind Mohan was made home secretary, replacing Ajay Kumar Bhalla. Earlier, the security and foreign affairs departments also witnessed rejigs. Vikram Misri took over as the new foreign secretary and Rajinder Khanna as India’s first additional national security advisor (NSA). He will share the burden of NSA Ajit Doval, especially in operations.
The Modi government 3.0 may have made efforts at political continuity, but within two months of returning to power, the executive has undergone a shake-up, the message being efficiency and quicker decision-making. The shuffling of at least 20 senior IAS officers ensures that the country has new executive heads in almost all top ministries—defence secretary, commerce secretary, health secretary, agriculture secretary, to name a few.
Missing from the rejig has been the railways. But with the tenure of Railway Board chairperson Jaya Varma Sinha ending this month, expect a replacement soon. The reshuffle is so deep that almost the entire finance ministry’s bureaucracy has been moved about. Four of the six secretaries who finalised the Union Budget 2024-25 are out. In eight cases, transfers have been done two to three months in advance. A week before this, the national bureaucracy was rejigged at the middle level, with 34 joint secretaries reshuffled.
The buzz in the bureaucracy is that changes may happen in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as well. Already, Uttarakhand cadre IAS officer Amit Negi has joined the PMO as additional secretary and special secretary Punya Salila Srivastava has exited to be appointed as health secretary.
Modi has retained his principal secretary, NSA and two other advisors in the PMO. There is speculation that Ajay Bhalla may be inducted as advisor or in some other capacity. Two former secretaries Tarun Kapoor and Amit Khare are already in the PMO as advisors. Bhalla had been home secretary for more than five years, and the government is keen to have him in the system.
The Modi government is also reviewing the chiefs of the Central Armed Police Forces, such as the Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force, Sashastra Seema Bal, National Security Guard and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. NSG chief Nalin Prabhat has already been appointed as special director general of the Jammu and Kashmir police.
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