A day after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav sacked two controversial Ministers, he delivered another surprise on Tuesday by replacing the topmost bureaucrat in the State.
The State government removed Chief Secretary Deepak Singhal and replaced him with another IAS officer and principal secretary (Finance), Rahul Bhatnagar.
Mr. Bhatnagar is a 1983-batch IAS officer, and has additional charge of sugar industries and cane development department.
A 1982-batch IAS officer, Mr. Singhal had assumed the post of chief secretary as recent as July 6. He was earlier principal secretary (irrigation).
He was picked for the post after his predecessor Alok Ranjan retired and was made chief advisor to the Chief Minister.
With the 2017 Assembly elections approaching, Mr. Yadav on Monday sacked two colleagues — controversial Mining Minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati and Panchayati Raj and Minor Irrigation Minister Raj Kishore Singh, whose name has also surfaced in the alleged scandal in construction of check-dams and cases of land grabbing.
The decision came three days after the Allahabad High Court rejected the State government’s application against a CBI probe into allegations of illegal mining activity across the State.
