Thanks to TRS, regional sentiments are holding sway everywhere – even in areas unthinkable some time ago. All India Services have generally been exempt from parochial tendencies till recently. Now, even the post of chief secretary – head of all executive decisions in the state – is not out of bounds for regional interests.
An attempt has been made to raise ‘son of the soil’ slogan in the appointment to new chief secretary of the state. While CM Kiran Kumar Reddy picked Prasanna Kumar Mohanty, the 1979 AP cadre officer from Odisha, some self-declared Telugu promotion societies sought to project local man IVR Krishna Rao, as the rightful successor.
The argument is that only those whose mother tongue is Telugu should occupy the all-important post in Andhra Pradesh. Leaders of Telugu Bhashodyama Samakhya leaders Chukka Ramaiah and Samala Ramesh Babu have been in the forefront of this pressure group. The IAS lobby favouring Krishna Rao also backed the move. Luckily, Kiran does not easily yield to such demands. Hence, he has gone ahead and orders appointing Mohanty are expected to be issued on Tuesday.
Earlier, there were attempts to bring pressure on the government to make a dalit officer Samuel as the CS. He was sidelined by the government because of his involvement in Jagan case.
If what the so-called pro-Telugu associations and a section of the IAS lobby says is correct, then what TRS has been demanding all these years is absolutely justifiable. Would they subscribe to this philosophy in all spheres?
