Last week, Shiv Sena's office bearers in Uttar Pradesh are understood to have sent feelers to the Congress for a poll understanding for the upcoming panchayat elections in the North Indian state.

While the state leadership of the Congress in Maharashtra has indicated that the alliance with Shiv Sena was for the state only, the latter is considering taking it to Uttar Pradesh. Last week, Shiv Sena’s office bearers in Uttar Pradesh are understood to have sent feelers to the Congress for a poll understanding for the upcoming panchayat elections in the North Indian state.

Promoted

Idzes Kundan, a 1996-batch IAS officer who was one of 12 bureaucrats named in the Adarsh housing scam, was last week promoted to the Principal Secretary-rank. While the scam was unearthed 10 years ago, the government is yet to initiate a departmental inquiry against bureaucrats whose names cropped up in it. With no pending departmental inquiry against her, this is Kundan’s second promotion in the decade since the scam came to light. Pradeep Vyas, a 1989-batch officer, is the only other remaining serving IAS officer whose name was embroiled in the matter.

In the race…

Maharashtra Public Service Commission’s (MPSC) chairman Satish Gawai has applied for the post of Chairman of the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission, which will soon fall vacant. But a section of bureaucrats say his application may be contrary to the Constitutional provision that “prohibits the chairman of a state public commission” to hold any office under the state or central government after ceasing office, barring membership to the Union Public Service Commission.

At loggerheads

To cut down on its own rentals, the state administration wants to relocate the State Election Commission, the Right to Information Commission, the Right to Services Commission and the Lokayukta, to Wadala within the next two months. This has apparently not gone down well with retired bureaucrats heading these commissions, who have indicated that the alternative location is not suitable. Of the four commissions, three are headed by former Chief Secretaries.

Under the lens

Questions are being raised over the recent elevation of Public Works Department Chief Engineer Anil Gaikwad to the post of a Secretary in additional capacity. Gaikwad, who was an accused in a multi-crore scam, is already holding another plum post in a state-run corporation. After being suspended for getting embroiled in the scam, the engineer was reinstated in 2017.

Compiled by Sandeep Ashar

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