Kerala lobby loses as Sonia man takes plum post in PMO

Babudom is undergoing a quiet shakeup. The fortunes of the famed Kerala lobby in the top echelons of bureaucracy have headed south with the proposed shifting of TKA Nair from the post of principal secretary to the Prime Minister.

In his place will come Pulok Chatterjee, an Uttar Pradesh cadre officer of the 1974 batch, signalling the northward trajectory of officers from UP and Bihar. Chatterjee has worked closely with Sonia Gandhi and, in a way, he will be a crucial link between the party high command and the government.

The change of guard is likely to be completed in October when Chatterjee takes over Nair’s job to become principal secretary to Manmohan Singh. Chatterjee had served in the PMO in UPA-1 before taking up an assignment with the World Bank as executive director. Nair is expected to continue as an advisor to the Prime Minister.

Chatterjee’s return to PMO is significant in more ways than one.

His proximity to the Gandhi family is well known. In his previous avatar in the PMO he was widely seen as a bridge between the Prime Minister and the Congress president, ensuring always that there was little scope for misunderstanding and miscommunication between them.

There was a growing perception in the past few months — when the government stumbled from one crisis to another and appeared more besieged than in control — that there were important occasions when the Congress president and the Prime Minister were not on the same page. The reason for that — more often than not — was a gap in communication rather than any serious difference of opinion. The fault for this often ended at the desk of Principal Secretary Nair.

Those gunning for Nair and the almost surreal grip of the Kerala lobby in Delhi also blamed the principal secretary for the sorry figure the government – and particularly the Prime Minister — cut on the issue of the appointment of CVC  KJ Thomas. Thomas’ appointment was struck down by the Supreme Court. He too was from the Kerala cadre.

Not only was the PMO blamed for not keeping the Prime Minister and the home minister fully briefed on the fact that Thomas faced a charge-sheet in an old import case, but also for the fact that the damage could not be contained. When Thomas refused to bow out quietly, it was a bigger blow to the PMO’s prestige as it laid bare its complete lack of clout.

The PMO and the principal secretary also did not cover themselves with glory in the way the correspondence between the now jailed former Communications Minister A Raja and the Prime Minister was handled. The PM was supposed to have asked his office to keep him at arm’s length from the 2G scam. The leakage of this communication damaged the PM’s prestige. The exchange between the Prime Minister and the tainted minister is now coming back to haunt Manmohan Singh and has the potential of becoming more than just a political embarrassment for the latter.

There could be another reason as well. Under fire from different sides, perhaps the government also needs a scapegoat in the bureaucracy and TKA Nair — who has had an enviable stint almost coinciding with the beginning of the PM’s tenure in 2004 — makes for a perfect fall guy.

The power of the Kerala lobby can be appreciated by the fact that for a long period of time one cadre alone occupied just about every key post in the country. The list was like a who’s who in the country — the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister (TKA Nair), Cabinet Secretary (KM Chandrashekhar), National Security Advisor (first MK Narayanan, and now Shiv Shankar Menon), Home Secretary (GK Pillai), CVC ( Thomas) — and all were tied with the same umbilical chord.

That the powers of the Kerala lobby were in decline started becoming evident a couple of months ago when KM Chandrashekhar failed to secure another extension as cabinet secretary. The exit of Home Secretary GK Pillai was another indicator of the way the wind was blowing. Unlike the last few years when prize postings almost went as a norm to the Kerala cadre, the three most prestigious assignments decided by this government in the last few weeks — that of Cabinet Secretary AK Seth, Home Secretary RK Singh, and a new CVC (Pradeep Kumar) — have all gone to UP and Bihar cadre officers.

The return of Pulok Chatterjee is being seen as a welcome development by the old guard in the Congress party who found themselves cut off from the centre of governance during Nair’s term at the helm of affairs. Chatterjee came close to Mrs Gandhi during his tenure as the district magistrate of Sultanpur and Rae Bareli. Later he served the Congress president as her secretary and also held a formal position in the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. His appointment is being linked with the Congress party’s efforts to put its best foot forward in next year’s UP state elections.