Sanjay Prasad, Yogi's trusted aide and helping hand during COVID, is now UP's most powerful bureaucrat

New Delhi: A 1995-batch IAS officer and trusted man of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Sanjay Prasad is now the most powerful bureaucrat in Uttar Pradesh after he was given the charge of key departments of Home and Information along with his current post — Principal Secretary to the CM.

The two most powerful bureaucrats so far in UP, Navneet Sehgal and Awanish Awasthi, have made way for Prasad.

While Sehgal, who was handling Information as the Additional Chief Secretary, has been moved to Sports, Awasthi, who was handling Home, retired on 31 August after the Centre did not approve his extension. This brings a new change to UP’s bureaucratic ladder.

“Prasad has the image of being an honest and efficient officer with the “ability of getting things done,” a source said.

Prasad served as Secretary since 2019 and then Principal Secretary to Yogi Adityanath. He is seen as someone who enjoys the complete confidence of the chief minister, sources in the UP government told News18.

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Giving Prasad the charge of both Home and Information in addition to his key role in the Chief Minister’s Office explains the decision. In 2020, the Information Portfolio was taken from Awasthi and given to Sehgal after the Hathras incident had brought the government much flak.

Prasad has earlier served as the District Magistrate of key districts like Faizabad, Agra, Firozabad, Bahraich, Lakhimpur Kheri and Maharajganj and also did a stint in Gorakhpur as Chief Development Officer from 1999 to 2001 when he is said to have first caught the eye of Yogi Adityanath who became the Gorakhpur MP in 1998.

What has, however, impressed the chief minister more about Prasad is his performance as Secretary of Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation in 2019 and being instrumental in the successful organisation of the Investor Summit in the state.

Prasad was also closely involved in the management of the Covid-19 crisis in the state from the CMO’s side. The CM had brought him back from central deputation in 2019 after he served for four years in the Centre as Joint Secretary in the Defence Production and the Science and Technology department.

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Prasad, 52, is a post-graduate in Geography and belongs to Bihar.

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