The quirk of fate is hard to gauge if politics comes into play. Retired Haryana IAS officer Rajesh Khullar came to realize this harsh reality within four hours on fateful Friday. At 8 O’ clock in the evening he was appointed as the Chief Principal Secretary to Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, with the rank and status of a Cabinet Minister, but at 12 in midnight Khullar was again nothing more than a retired senior bureaucrat. It is the story of Khullar’s midnight tryst with destiny.
Thanks to the behind-the-scene manoeuvres that spoilt Khullar’s chance to enjoy the status of a Cabinet Minister without being a political heavyweight. This is not all, breaking the tradition of administrative propriety Khullar was bestowed a tenure co-terminus with the Chief Minister’s term. It meant intertwining Khullar’s fate with that of CM Saini.
This public display of unprecedented patronage to a retired bureaucrat provided enough provocation for anti-Khullar lobbyists to flex their muscles. Politicians lapped it up and put the final nail in the coffin. The result: his game was over by the midnight.
Khullar’s meteoric rise to the Cabinet rank was announced on Friday but just a few hours later, state Chief Secretary T V S N Prasad issued another letter saying that the orders regarding the appointment of the Chief Principal Secretary to the CM are kept “in abeyance till further orders”.
The drama came a full circle on the day Saini took charge as the new Haryana chief minister. The insiders say that government’s decision to
accord Cabinet rank to Khullar played the spoilsport as three of Saini’s senior
Cabinet colleagues upped the ante saying politicians toil throughout their career to reach this position and giving Cabinet status is an affront to them. The result was to hold back the decision. However, Khullar’s chance to become Chief Principal Secretary is still alive.
A 1988-batch IAS officer, Khullar wielded tremendous clout in Haryana’s bureaucracy due to his close proximity with former CM Manohar Lal Khattar. He worked as principal secretary to Khattar for almost five years when he was Haryana CM, before moving to the World Bank. Khullar finally retired on August 31, 2023 as an Additional Chief Secretary after 35 years in the civil services. But his closeness with Khattar saw him getting appointed as CM’s Chief Principal Secretary just a day after retirement.
Also Read: Haryana: Retd. IAS officer Rajesh Khullar appointed Chief Principal Secretary to CM
