The IAS officers in Telangana are divided as “Bihar batch” and “non-Bihar batch”. Non-Bihar batch include officers from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and all other states except Bihar.
After Somesh Kumar took over as Chief Secretary, the domination of “Bihar batch” has increased in state administration. Somesh Kumar, who is a native of Bihar, is reportedly encouraging Bihar native IAS officers and assigning them key responsibilities.
Bihar-native officials like Jayesh Rajan, Arvind Kumar were already holding key positions in TRS government even before Somesh Kumar took over as CS.
After Somesh became CS, he is taking more care to ensure that Bihar native officers continue their dominance.
This is creating anger among non-Bihar batch IAS officers. The recent incident of IAS officer Rajat Kumar, who is also a Bihar native officer and is facing charges of taking bribes from Megha Krishna Reddy to fund his daughter’s wedding, has come as a shot in the arm for non-Bihar officers.
Non-Bihar officers are campaigning internally that Bihar native officers are damaging the image of TRS government with their shady deals and hasty decisions. They say CS Somesh Kumar brought bad name to CM KCR and TRS government with his idea of “Dharani portal” due to which lakhs of land owners in Telangana are facing several hardships as the portal is full of errors.
They are campaigning that KCR should get rid off Bihar batch first if he wants to win Assembly polls in 2023.
