IAS officer of over 20 years, VK Pandian was serving as the private secretary of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
V K Pandian, IAS officer who took voluntary retirement yesterday, was on Tuesday appointed as Chairman 5T (Transformational Initiatives) with the rank of a cabinet minister. His appointment to a Cabinet Minister rank came a day after he took voluntary retirement from government service.
“Shri V K Pandian is hereby appointed as Chairman 5T (Transformational Initiatives) and Nabin Odisha in the rank of Cabinet Minister. Pandian shall work directly under the Chief Minister,” the General Administration and Public Grievance Department said.
Pandian will also be in charge of Odisha government’s new scheme – ‘Ama Odisha, Nabin Odisha’ (Our Odisha, New Odisha), an initiative formulated by Pandian. Furthermore, the former IAS officer is also likely to join the ruling BJD party, sources said.
Who is VK Pandian?
Pandian was a 2000-batch IAS officer of the Odisha cadre. He rose to prominence as a close aide of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and was most recently his private secretary. He joined the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) in 2011. In 2019 after Patnaik was elected CM of Odisha for the fifth time, Pandian got additional responsibility as ‘5T secretary’ to implement some transformational initiatives in government departments.
His closeness to Patnaik has often landed Pandian in controversies. Opposition parties accuse him of misusing his position for political gains. BJP and Congress leaders in the state had asked Pandian to resign and “officially join the BJD” after the former bureaucrat went on a whirlwind tour across Odisha and held 190 meetings to hear public grievances. Senior Opposition leaders in Odisha reacted to Pandian’s move.
SS Saluja, senior Congress MLA, welcomed the former IAS officer’s decision to take voluntary retirement, and said that he “should have done it earlier”. “We do not know whether he will join politics or return back to his own state. However, if he joins the BJD, then it will be helpful for the opposition, the Congress is particular,” Saluja said.
Mohan Majhi, BJP chief whip, said Pandian said, “Now, he will be able to do politics openly instead of with the mask of a bureaucrat on. He will not be accepted by the people of Odisha,” he claimed.
Odisha goes to polls early next year. The Assembly Elections of Odisha are typically held along with the Lok Sabha Elections.
(Inputs from PTI)
