Retiree IAS to target Nirmala Sitaraman

The YCP Government is known for its effective use of retired persons to attack its opponents. It is well known how retired judge Justice Kanaga Raj was made the State Election Commissioner to embarrass Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar. Now, the political circles are full of rumours the YCP regime was using a Delhi-based retired IAS officer to target none other than Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman.

Subhash Chandra Garg served as the Secretary in the Union Finance Ministry. Somehow, he could not go down well with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman. He was transferred to another department from where he took voluntary retirement and joined the Andhra Pradesh Government as an advisor. Suddenly, these days, Garg was making allegations against Nirmala Sitaraman. Delhi political circles were rife with rumours that AP Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy and his MPs were targeting Sitaraman. This was because the Union Finance Ministry was not approving all the requests being made by the AP Government.

Recently, AP Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy and senior IAS officers visited Delhi and tried to convince Sitaraman to allow AP Government to take more loans. There was no positive response. Even in respect of Polavaram funds, Sitaraman could not approve the requests made by AP because of several issues. This was being seen as the immediate reason for the YCP to target the Union Finance Minister.

In fact, Sitaraman has been helping the AP Government to maximum possible extent. Last year, she gave approvals to make Rs. 13,000 Cr loans additionally. This year also, AP was given permissions to make Rs. 5,000 Cr more loans. But, the Union Finance Ministry has rejected some more requests of AP that were against rules. Also, it was asking many questions on Polavaram expenditure. Political circles are curious to see where this latest confrontation will lead to.